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Need help very badly, please!

Mon, 10/07/2013 - 17:47
Let me start by saying that neither I, nor my husband have epilepsy. neither of us had ever had a seizure before 2days ago, so I apologize if I am posting in the wrong place, but I need help. 2 days ago, my husband had a bad reaction to the prescription drug, tramadol. he had a tonic-clonic seizure right next to me in our bed while we were watching tv. it was absolutely the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I can't still hear the noises he made. the images of his body seizing and his eyes rolling in the back of his head will not leave my mind. Within 20 minutes after having the seizure, he was 100% back to normal, besides being a little stunned by what I explained to him had happened. and since then, he's been totally fine, back to normal. no headaches. no cloudy, fatigued feeling. no muscle aches. nothing! but I have been a hot mess to say the least. I'm driving him crazy because I've been following him around like a puppy dog, afraid to ever leave him alone because I'm scared that he'll have another one when he's standing and I want to catch him if he does. I even made him let me stay in the bathroom while he took a shower last night. he doesn't understand what I witnessed, because he doesn't remember it. I'm constantly crying. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I constantly feel like I'm on the verge of a panic attack. I feel incredibly paranoid, not just about his seizure but about everything. I just have General, intense feeling of impending doom. I don't know how to get over this. he's no longer taking the tramadol, so intellectually I know that he's not gonna have another one, but that isn't stopping me from feeling this way. Will I ever be ok? will I ever recover? will I ever be normal and carefree again? I don't know how long I can live like this, in constant fear and panic. I just feel so lost. does anybody have any advice as to how I can pull myself out of this? or at least any encouragement that is will subside eventually?? I'm desperate...

Comments

Re: Need help very badly, please!

Submitted by Irishrose86 on Tue, 2013-10-08 - 06:08

I'm not offended. I understand you're scared and it feels like you wrote this during a very big moment of panic. But breathe. The worst thing you can do for him is to freak out.  He probably doesn't have epilepsy at all. It was probably a reaction to the medication. Any number of things can cause a seizure to occur.  I'm glad you're reading up on it, but please let him speak to a doctor before you scare yourself, or him, more. Don't make the diagnosis yourself. It's good to be prepared with some questions, but don't make assumptions. 

I wish you and your husband the best. Thank you for sharing. 

I'm not offended. I understand you're scared and it feels like you wrote this during a very big moment of panic. But breathe. The worst thing you can do for him is to freak out.  He probably doesn't have epilepsy at all. It was probably a reaction to the medication. Any number of things can cause a seizure to occur.  I'm glad you're reading up on it, but please let him speak to a doctor before you scare yourself, or him, more. Don't make the diagnosis yourself. It's good to be prepared with some questions, but don't make assumptions. 

I wish you and your husband the best. Thank you for sharing. 

Re: Need help very badly, please!

Submitted by wellsmegan on Tue, 2013-10-08 - 10:28
Thank you to everyone for posting. Can I ask you all one more question? I'm just really really shocked that my husband has recoveredso quickly. Everything I've been reading for 2 days gives symptoms of what a person should be feeling for 24 hours after a seizure. Headaches, body aches, a dazed, foggy head. Things like that. Is it normal for someone to recover from a tonic clonic seizure within 20 minutes after having it, without any symptoms at all? The only problem he's still having is the result of biting his tongue really bad during the seizure. Besides that, he's been 100% normal since 20 minutes after the seizure occured. Is that normal to all of you who have experienced seizures so often? Does it signify at all the severity of the seizure? Like that maybe his seizure, though it looked violent and very ugly to me, may have actually been fairly mild?

Re: Need help very badly, please!

Submitted by 3Hours2Live on Wed, 2013-10-09 - 02:09
Hi WellsMegan, Tonic-clonic seizures at times can be a relief, esp. with a combined quick physical recovery (which becomes more rare over decades), either from the effects of amnesia erasing the memory of surrounding unpleasant sensations, or from the effects similar to those reported in some reports on electro-convulsive therapy. Sometimes the loud, strange noise of a seizure in epilepsy is called "the epileptic scream". When my partial seizures go into secondary tonic-clonics, the "Epileptic Scream" happens at times. Which particular stage in the tonic-clonic a particular type of scream occurs is difficult to determine, but from reports, the one right near the start is the loudest, with any following loud forced vocal sounds more similar to "Valsalva maneuver" and "Petechial Hemorrage" associated phenomena. Some epileptic histories cite the Epileptic Scream as being louder than any voluntary or fright reflex screams. Animals often have the Epileptic Scream also. In humans, it's sometimes called "Epileptic Cry" (Page 3, first column, 4th paragraph): "With a severe and generalized tonic contraction at the onset, air is forcibly exhaled through closed vocal cords, giving the “epileptic cry” of peculiar and piercing quality." From: http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/reprint/25/6/889 In rabbits, (Page 16, first column, first paragraph): "At 10 mm after the third hour, the rabbit let out a typical epileptic scream (see part I, this issue) and extended his front and hind paws, throwing his head back and arching his body in a typical opisthotonus position. After about 2 mm, the animal went into generalized convulsions and died within about 1 mm." From: http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/reprint/25/6/898 Dostoevsky also made the epileptic scream part of a great work of literature. The epileptic scream often has the result of being a major disqualification for all major life activities through the trauma effects on others. Concern for these effects outweigh the concerns for accommodation under the ADAAA. Before I was officially labeled with epilepsy, I had many adverse reactions to various medications, and what not, that often happened to coincide with my seizures. The adverse reactions were making my seizures more intense, but not, per se, causing the initiation of the epileptic seizures. The fine line between percipitants and intensifiers is somewhat irrelevant, as both indicate an increased propensity of the presence of a more fundamental disorder. In my case, one of the more fundamental disorders is temporal lobe epilepsy, and over the decades of my life, the results of long term epileptic "kindling". Other disorders include bouts of hypoglycemia, LQTS, and likely neurocutaneous disorders (with hypoglycemia and LQTS being both very responsive to percipitants and intensifiers, much like close calls with SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy) and LQTS 2 drop-dead strenuous sports events & inverse LQTS 3 sleep/wake near-death/recovery seizures). Tadzio "Dose-independent occurrence of seizure with tramadol" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550327/ Re: tramadol & epileptic kindling (The data demonstrate that kindling enhances the susceptibility of rats to convulsant adverse effects of tramadol and its enantiomers, indicating that a preexisting lowered seizure threshold increases the risk of tramadol-induced seizures): "Anticonvulsant and proconvulsant effects of tramadol, its enantiomers and its M1 metabolite in the rat kindling model of epilepsy" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1572317/pdf/131-0703562a.pdf Re: QT (Neither morphine nor tramadol doses are associated with the QT interval length.((But,) The tramadol treated group is small which might conceal a QT-prolonging effect.)): "Oxycodone is associated with dose-dependent QTc prolongation in patients and low-affinity inhibiting of hERG activity in vitro" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670374/ It is advisable that tramadol should not be used in epileptic patients.: "Tramadol induced seizure: A 3-year study" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3755854/pdf/CJIM-3-484.pdf Severe hypoglycemia induced by tramadol: two new cases of an unlisted side effect. Rev Med Interne. 2011;32((11)):703–705. [PubMed] "Severe hypoglycemia induced by tramadol: two new cases of an unlisted side effect" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21855184

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