Deja vu

You need to read "Seized" by Eve La Plante and in my opinion Neppe's description of the quality of a deju vu from a seizure. A Dejuvu is a complex partial seizure the stomach ache is called a somasomatic response and if you are having trouble with lights your seizing when you look at them and could be blacking out. Only 2% of epileptics seize from light which I learned was inherited so you could have a spike-wave pattern. Find out and look up spike-wave and GABA because the wrong medicine will make you feel nuts (bad like Starry Night) no sleep, manic thoughts, circular thing, and the cure is 5 mg. Valium. I needed three a day for three days and Tegretol and good luck if you do not have a Grand-Mal getting treated in an ER for status. I was diagnosed in 1999 and properly medicated in 2008. Read, learn and also learn about Catamenial Seizures if you ovulate. No one told me a thing but it would be TWELVE years before I met a neurologist who helped. You want a older primary medicine and Lamictal is off-label. After WW2 they had tons of head injuries to study. You have to insist, where is your injury because remember your brain scar is on the opposite side. Location is going to determine your interical and post-ictal behaviors which will influence your personality, but your choices will still be yours. It can heighten your view broaden your mind so now you have--A curse and a blessing. Read famous epileptics and learn to embrace both your improving and learning your limits. I wear sunglasses all day and night like Ozzy, Sir Elton John and many others who are light sensitive epileptics. You protect you. True freedom is following the words of the Great Mrs. Roosevelt, "No one can hurt me without my permission". Stay away from alcohol and read that book. Good luck!

Wow, I am quit surprised to see that other people are experiencing the same symptoms I have been getting. Though, as to be expected, everyone has subtle differences. I first remember getting Deja vu spells when I was in my early teens. At that time they were a little different then they are now. When I would experience a moment of Deja vu I would get the usual feeling that I have done this before. Then suddenly I would remember a dream I had a few days or a few weeks ago. It was like I was living a moment in that dream. After a short time it would go away. I didn't have any strange feelings after that. I actually enjoyed them a little, because it was a good feeling. In my mid teens they started to get a little more intense. One I remember very well, it made me cry for no reason. I couldn't figure out why I was crying. The feeling slowly went away and I went about my day feeling normal. Throughout my teen years I would get them here and there. Some spells were mild and others a little more intense, but manageable. I started to pay more attention to them as I had more. I started to link them to my dreams as all the spells I had were related to dreams I had a few days or weeks ago. Also the more intense spells would mess with my emotions, causing me to be sad. In my early 20's they almost completely stopped. I am 26 now and in the past 2 years they have come back and changed a lot. Now when I experience a spell it starts off with a strange uneasy feeling coming over me. I get the usual feeling of Deja vu and most of the time I get the feeling that I have had a dream about this before. I also get a strange smell in my nose that I can’t explain, and no it’s not bunt toast. My stomach will turn and I will start to sweat all over. I will feel very nauseous, light headed and everything will seem hazy or fuzzy. Sometimes my emotions will change and I will get very scared or sad (Probably because I know what this is). For about 30 seconds or longer I will have this very intense uneasy, dizzy, dream state feeling. It's like I am dreaming, but I know I’m not. The feeling will slowly go away and when it is gone I am left with this fuzzy, uneasy feeling. I feel very nauseous and my stomach feels like it has just turned it self upside down. Only a few times this feeling has made me throw up. After I experience this Deja vu feeling for the rest of the day everything is fuzzy. I will feel it in my stomach and in the back of my head. Like it is going to come back, and they usually do. The spells will come in clusters. I can go months with out experiencing any, then for a few days or a whole week I will have several. Ah, dazed and confused. That is the best way for me to describe the feeling afterwards. The feeling during the spell is like you have lost your sense of reality. But anyway, in the past 2 years they have caused me to miss work because they are so intense. So I went to see a doctor about them. Before I could finish explaining everything the Doctor told me they where panic attacks, gave me a pamphlet and sent me on my way. After that I went to my doctor, and he referred me to a neurologist. As a lot of you have had this, I went for the EEG and MRI scans. Of course nothing was found, though my neurologist told me that this doesn't mean there is nothing there. I had a very good conversation with him about it. He was probably the best doctor I have seen. He offered me meds, but I declined. I told him that I wanted to see if I would be able to control them my self. I just need to understand my spells first. See, I have asthma and over time I have taught my self how to control my asthma attacks. When I feel an asthma attack coming I am able to stop it before it even happens, with out my inhaler. Because I am able to do this with my asthma I believe that I can do this with my deja vu spells. Unfortunately, I have not found a way to stop them...yet. Though, I am now able to feel them coming long before they happen. Another thing that crossed my mind while trying to understand the spells is if this was just all in my head. Was I imagining the Déjà vu spells? I quickly realized that this was a silly thought to ponder and quickly extinguished it. Anyway, I think this is long enough. There is so much more to tell, but I don’t think I need to go on. I could almost start a book with what I have now. Hehehe. To date, I believe that my spells are mainly caused by stress. As to how the stress is triggering the spells to start, I still don’t know. Right now I am at the tail end of another cluster. This cluster started about a week ago and I have missed 3 days of work. During the time I typed this post I have had about 3 spells and moments of uncontrollable crying. The last cluster was in January. I have another doctors appointment in a week about them. Hopefully I will be closer to finding out what I can do to stop them completely with out medication. For those of you that are experiencing the same things I am, I have learned that relaxation is the best thing to help. For me I go to a place close to home called Piper’s Lagoon. It is a very calming place where you can just sit on the rocks over looking the sea or walk through the woods. It is a very beautiful place to relax. But anyway, thank you for reading. Alex M.