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Night seizures one hour after falling asleep.

Wed, 09/22/2010 - 23:49
There's plenty of stories on here about people having night seizures. I have about 2 seizures per day, simple partial and always conscience. Half of my seizures occur at night almost exactly one hour after falling asleep. I usually wake up with a strong seizure feeling coming on and then about 3 secs later the fun begins with intense right side shaking, lasts for about 2 mins. Starts in my right hand goes down my whole right side and finishes with my right hand. Seems that night seizures are pretty common on this site but what happens to the body around the one hour mark from falling asleep? That seems to be a trigger for me. Read all about it at: http://www.thegrilledpepper.com/2010/03/seizure-activity/ Thanks!

Comments

Re: Night seizures one hour after falling asleep.

Submitted by GrilledPepper on Fri, 2010-09-24 - 14:06
Interesting that you mention you feel the origin is in the frontal lobe. This all started for me in October 2009. I had a high fever, went to lie down, and ended up having a grand mal seizure. An MRI showed that I had a tumor on the frontal lobe along the motorstrip. I had brain surgery at the beginning of Nov and 30% of the tumor was removed, the other 70% was too close to the motorstrip so it was decided to radiate the rest. The day after surgery I had my first conscience seizure while in the MRI tube (not so fun). I had about 7 or 8 more that day. They loaded me up with keppra and dilantin and the seizures went away completely. The tumor was diagnosed as a slow growing Grade II Oligodendroglioma. I put off radiation until March and in the meantime I was back at work, driving again, and life was turning back to normal. Then on March 4th I went in for another routine MRI before scheduling the radiotherapy treatment. Two hours later I had a massive, 45 min long, full body seizure that I was conscience for the entire time. That kicked off all the seizures I now have that we're trying to get under control. The doctors admitted that I probably had a reaction to the contrast dye. Anyway, from March to July I experienced sharp increases in seizure activity each month and the doctors just kept piling on the meds. Finally near the end of July I decided to start changing my diet, seeing a nutritionist, and a few other things. The results so far is that August was the first month where I saw a decrease in seizures. The end of August I started reducing my meds and so far September is lower than August. So I'm not saying I have any real answers just yet but for me it appears that the medications I've tried aren't helping anymore. The Jacksonian seizures you mentioned sound more like what I have than Dyskinesia. I'll keep researching that. In the meantime I still need to figure out what is happening to my body and/or brain 1 hour after falling asleep. I had 2 seizures last night. First one woke me up after falling asleep and 2nd came on 1 hour after that. It's almost to the minute each time.

Re: Night seizures one hour after falling asleep.

Submitted by Masterjen on Fri, 2010-09-24 - 23:08
Sorry to hear you had 2 seizures last night; I did, too :( Well, one for sure. I was at that about-to-fall-asleep stage, and had a "moderate"seizure that did generalize. I think I had one in my sleep, because I woke up with a headache, very weak arms an legs, and a sore jaw. I used to wake up like this fairly frequently before I was even diagnosed with seizures - it wasn't until seizures occurred while I was awake that I was diagnosed with a "seizure disorder" . I have what are definitely night-time seizures once a week, because they will wake me up. Other times I suspect I do not wake up but I will still have the weakness and headache (and sometimes a sore jaw) even after 8 hours of sleep. You mention diet changes: it might be worth finding out if you have celiac disease (basically, a severe form of gluten-intolerance), because it can be related to seizures as well. I was diagnosed with celiac disease 3 months prior to the seizures starting. I started a gluten-free diet right away. The seizures started well after this diet change, but stil I believe there is a connection somewhere, somehow. My current neuro. does not believe there can be a connection (research it yourself - there DEFINITELY is a connection).

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