Hard to Diagnose.

Re: Re: Hard to Diagnose.

Submitted by sasquash on Fri, 2007-01-19 - 21:27

I've really wanted to post on this forum but was afraid because I didn't want to take away anything from those who truly are suffering from epliepsy. I have had two friends in my life that actually did have epliespy. One lady I worked with and she has had epliepsy since she was a kid and mostly had Complex Partial Seizures. The other was a girl I went to school with and I'm not really sure what kind of seizures she had, she just used to pass out and twitch a few seconds and that would be it. Anyways, I too have had some issues with what I call grey-outs or black-outs. I will get a sudden onset of lightheadedness, accompanied by a loud intense ear ringing, an odd electrical heat smell, and light spots and patterns. Then my hearing will go out all together or if I can still hear things will seem very low and far away, my vision will completely fade out to a grey expanse kinda of like the tv transmission has been cut. I don't think I truly lose conciousness but I know I'm not aware of things going on around me. My heart will race and I will have feelings of de-ja-vu or rather daydreaming states in which I completely forget what is was I was thinking about and start dreaming about something compeletly unrelated, I find it very hard to think and stay focused. When these episodes happen I get about a split second of warning and I just grab onto the closest thing to me and if nothing is around me then I just kneel down and grab onto the floor. They can last for 30 seconds or for a good 3 or 4 mintues. Afterwards I always have a headache and feel tired for at least an hour or so. This first started happening for me when I hit puberty which was 15 or 16. It always like to happen about an 1/2 or so after I had showered, or after I would finish a good workout in dance class, or when I was sick. However, as I've gotten older (I'm 32 now) they seem to happen at any old time and bit more frequently. Most of the time I have been primarly alone or at least in another room when they've happened. When it first started happening I didn't know what was happening so i didn't really tell anyone about it. I thought that maybe that was what passing out was like and I must have been on the verge of it but never quite got there. I was always fine afterwards so it didn't seem like an urgent concern to me, it worried me from time to time but not enough to seek out medical attention. I lost my health insurance when I turned 18 and still do not have steady insurance to this day. I just kinda of got used to it, and even have thought it must be normal something everyone experiences from time to time. I also thought it possibly could be blood pressure related since my mother has had problems with high blood pressure since she was my age. It hasn't been until recently after telling my finance about it in a casual conversation that I realized ok, maybe it's not normal and i should seek out some medical advice on it. My finance had said nothing like that has ever happened to him and he has become worried about it. I asked my mother and she said that nothing like that has happened to her either even when her blood pressure has been really high. We took my blood pressure for the heck of it and it was perfectly normal. I deceided to get on the internet and look into some of the symptoms expecting to find them to be issues of high or low blood pressure. I was surprise that instead I keep running into epliepsy sites that downright list most of the symptoms that I have experienced. On top of that there have been new things happening. Sound going compltely out when watching tv, no ear ringing or head rush jsut the sound goes out, I thought it was my stereo speakers at first but my financee never notices it. Plus after a 1/4 cup of champagne at Christmas later that night, my head kept flopping backwards then, my neck muscles would tense and my head would jerk forwards it lasted for a good 15 mintues. Then my financee told me that he has caught me twitching at night and that it really worries him because it's very rhythmatic and he says he has woken me up a few times, although I have never remeber any of this and I have never been known to twitch in my sleep. I have been reluctant to go to the doctor with these issues, because number one I didn't know if I was making something out of nothing and number two it been happening for so long that I'm afraid of just being ignored now, and number three I don't have health insurance at the moment. However, in another month I will finally be able to get some insurance and I think I may just make an appointment for at least a generally check-up and discuss some of these things with my doctor. If they do turn out to be seizures I would be ok with that, like I said I've had two friends with epliepsy and they both lived pretty full normal lives. I just don't like the idea of taking heavy-duty meds. It remains to be seen though. :0)