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Seizures while sleeping~

Tue, 01/25/2005 - 17:03
Hello everyone,
 
I am new to this site... It is late, but I thought I would throw this question out -
 
Anyone have grand mals only while sleeping?
 
My apologies if I'm not using the correct verbiage (grand mal, to me, meaning the 'generic' seizures 1 hears about mainly throughout life - full body convulsions lasting a couple of minutes, eyes rolling, etc.). 
 
This encompasses my seizure history, mainly.  Quick summary: If I have a petit mal, it starts in my right arm, electric feeling, tone in the ear, still have full control.  When sleeping, many times I wake up w/ what seems to have started as this right arm petit mal, but has 'spread' into my chest.  Most of the time I can wake myself up out of them...seems if my level of awake/self-awareness is high enough, I can stop a grand mal from happening.  However, there are times when I can not wake up enough.  I then lapse into a seizure, experiencing/remembering far too much (scary!), & then next thing I know I am waking up very groggy, & so on.
 
Some may see this as a blessing in disguise, as I have never had a grand mal when I've not been asleep first.  I suppose it is, but the experience is no less terrifying.
 
Thanks for the feedback,
 
Ache

Comments

Re:

Submitted by brodiesmom on Tue, 2005-03-08 - 09:02

edited per request

edited per request

RE: RE: RE: RE: Seizures while sleeping~

Submitted by kodankk on Tue, 2005-03-08 - 09:51
This is in response to posts 59 & 60I have learned that what you describe about seizures occurring at 6:45 AM or just after falling asleep is not unusual.My 8 year-old son is believed to have Benign Rolandic Epilepsy (BRE). I say "believe'" because he needs a more detailed eeg than what is available where we live to confirm the diagnosis but all the other symptoms point to BRE.He had his first and only full tonic/clonic seizure just before his normal waking time (by coincidence, 7 AM) last summer. He has had a number of simple partial seizures since then but none since late December when we think we got his med levels set. All of these partial seizures occurred in the first 15 minutes of sleep. In fact, I can tell when one is coming based on his body movements just prior to the seizure, specifically in the mouth area.I asked our neuro about the timing of the seizures and he said that the brain is in a similar state going into and coming out of sleep so even though the seizures occurred at the two ends of the sleep cycle for the night, the brain thinks it is a similar time period.I also asked why that specific time period and all he could come up with was an analogy. He suggested you view your day like a car running in fifth gear but that when we go to sleep, the brain starts to shift down to fist gear and all night it spends time in the other gears before going back to fifth gear in the morning. It is during the shifting phase that some people are more susceptible to seizures.BRE is usually outgrown and some people don't even need to medicate. We were advised to medicate because of the freequency of our son's seizures. While I'm not a fan of medication, this move was for the best as it stopped our son from worrying about the seizures. At some point, we'll make the trip for the more thorough eeg just so we know how to deal with this long-term but for now we are happy to have the seizures under control.I know a lot of parent ask how their child is affected. Fortunately, we have seen no changes in our son either socially, athletically or academically where he performas at a high level. I know we're lucky as I read many of the other posts.I hope this perspective helps.

RE: RE: RE: Seizures while sleeping~

Submitted by 2caret on Sun, 2005-04-10 - 08:54
My son had 3 TC seizures while sleeping in 1 weeks time. They were the first ever in his life and he was 13 at the time (11mo ago).... No illness, no problems, however the doctors told us they could have been caused by sleep deprivation. His EEG and MRI were both normal. Hes been on Depakote ER and has not had any seizures at all. He just had a sleep-deprived EEG a couple weeks ago - NORMAL! I have also heard of many kids going thru puberty who have 1 or 2 and never get them again.... this could also be the case with my son - but they cant give us a definitive answer..... so for now, he will stay on the meds for another year and then we will wean him off as long as he stays seizure-free.

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