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Seizures or Syncope?

Thu, 06/06/2013 - 13:19

Hey, I'm new to this website.

I am a nineteen year old female and recently have been in and out of the doctor and hospital due to bad headaches that I have daily.  Initially, the only reason I was going into the doc was to figure out what was causing the headaches and ringing ears, blurred vision, deja vu type feelings. (I have had at least 4 concussions in the past 5 years, so post concussion syndrome was suspected).  However, they began doing a lot of tests on me to make sure something more wasn't going on.  I went in for a blood test and while I have had blood taken before and have had no issue, I had some anxiety leading up to this one.  I didn't watch the needle draw blood and actually calmed down once the blood was being taken.  Then suddenly I felt like I was having an out of body experience, I got very warm and my head fell back in the chair.  I remember hearing the technician speak to me but was unable to respond. Then I was out cold and don't remember what happened except that the tech had time to go get another person in the room.  When I came to I was so confused and scared, I have never passed out before.  I was told I was completely grey and that I had flailed.  They kept me there for a while because I was having trouble focusing, my mucles were weak, and just wanted to sleep.  We all passed it off as fainting.

The following weak I was in the field at work (I worked at a horse ranch) and we were discussing irrigation.  The lady I worked withw ent to start the tractor and I was left standing in the field, watching her. Suddenly I felt warm again and lightheaded.  Then I blacked out and fell and it happened pretty quick.  My coworker had to help me to the vehicle because I was a bit dazed and feeling 'off'.  She brought me to the ER where I was coming mostly back to normal other than the fact I felt like sleeping.  My vitals were all okay and a doctor who was there (not my usual) said I had syncope.  Fainting has never ever been an issue for me, so I don't know why this started up.  Anyway, my doctor got me in to see him the next week and while he was talking to me, I haven't a clue what happened but it was like a time skip of a few seconds.  He'd asked me a question and I was so confused because I'd totally missed the whole question and actually apologized and said "sorry I must have zoned out" and he gave me a funny look and had to repeat it.  He ended up advising me to quit my job because working with horses and whatever was going on was not wise, clearly. I've also had instances during the day where I don't feel like me but kind of do things robotic or stop what I am doing and feel like nothing is famililar, or where I am confused and wondering what I'm doing while I'm doing it.  I feel scatterbrained a lot as well, like, my thoughts jump around and I have trouble remembering, I also am quite often tired during the day for no reason.   So I ended up getting in for a CT scan to be sure nothing structural was wrong and me and my mom were in the waiting room and I got that warm aura again.  I guess I blanked out and my head went backwards and my eyes fluttered and I wasn't responding to my name for a few seconds, but eventually came around.  My mom saw this one and initially we thought maybe I was just worrying because I hate hospital stuff.  I also try to undermine things to my parents and such because I don't want to be told that I should quit riding horses, so I try to shrug things off and tell people I'm fine even when I'm not.

Then came the day of my EEG.  All my other tests came back negative. Blood was great, CT scan fine, mini ECG fine.  I went in for an hour long EEG and thought it all went fine and we were all, including the neurologist, expecting it to come back normal.  But when we met with the neurologist after, he said it was abnormal.  He seemed quite puzzled because everyone was thinking I just had syncope.  He started prying more into each of my episodes and seemed more and more baffled.  Until he came in and said "I was told you were seeing me so that we could decide if you were fainting or having seizures" it had never even occured to my mother or I that I could be having seizures, as my doc hadn't said that either. Now I am scheduled for two more EEG's and am not allowed to drive for 3 months, which means I can't work for 3 months at least because I live out of town.  So now the headaches are on the back burner and a whole new issue has come up...

Does this honestly sound like I could be having seizures?  I don't know how they could have just come up, although there have been instances when I was a younger teen where people would tell me to pay attention and focus (learning to drive was bad because I would totally zone out at the wheel and miss stuff, but we wrote this off as just me not being a very observative driver...). I just have trouble wrapping my head around this.  No one in my family has epilepsy, and if this did in fact start when I was younger, how could it go unnoticed for so long?  Iff it just started recently...how is that possible for it to 'just come on' out of the blue?  I have been under lots of stress the last 7 or so months as my parents separated and had been fighting and I'm kind of stuck in the middle.  On top of everything, we are going to have to sell the family farm, which is the only home I have known for 17 years. 

Please feel free to comment, I really would love to hear some feedback on your opinions of this being epilepsy or syncope...I really don't want to have to start meds and am kind of having difficulty wrapping my head around this.

Comments

Re: Seizures or Syncope?

Submitted by Masterjen on Thu, 2013-06-06 - 13:39

There are a lot of different kinds of seizures, and most are not the typical full-body convulsing ones that we see depicted on tv all the time.  And as I'm sure you will eventually read here when more people post, there are seizures that are similar to what you describe.  Epilepsy/seizures can occur "out of the blue".  Some children have absence seizures that can easily be dismissed as "not paying attention", and maybe this is what you had when you were in school.  Sometimes kids with absence seizures can go on to have other types of seizures when they get older, and that's when the problem gets noticed, and it is only in hindsight that it is realized that the person may have had absence seizures when younger.  

Having said all that, there is still no way to say if you have epilepsy or syncope or something else completely since many symptoms overlap.  Hang in there until you get the final word from your doctors and as tempting as it is to slef-diagnose, try not to jump to conclusions based on what you read.   Good luck and keep us all posted!

 

There are a lot of different kinds of seizures, and most are not the typical full-body convulsing ones that we see depicted on tv all the time.  And as I'm sure you will eventually read here when more people post, there are seizures that are similar to what you describe.  Epilepsy/seizures can occur "out of the blue".  Some children have absence seizures that can easily be dismissed as "not paying attention", and maybe this is what you had when you were in school.  Sometimes kids with absence seizures can go on to have other types of seizures when they get older, and that's when the problem gets noticed, and it is only in hindsight that it is realized that the person may have had absence seizures when younger.  

Having said all that, there is still no way to say if you have epilepsy or syncope or something else completely since many symptoms overlap.  Hang in there until you get the final word from your doctors and as tempting as it is to slef-diagnose, try not to jump to conclusions based on what you read.   Good luck and keep us all posted!

 

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