Epilepsy and PAnic Attacks

For many years doctors told me I had both epilepsy and a panic disorder. I always knew in the back of my mind that those "panic attacks" were seizures and not "panic attacks". Finally my neuro at the time told to go see a shrink that anxiety/panic disorders were out of his area of expertise. I found an epileptologist who said that the only way to determine what these "episodes" were was via a video EEG. I said lets do it. Less than two months later I got the news that these were complex partial seizures. The simple partial seizure is this feeling in my abdomen that I never paid attention to until they asked me if I felt that at thet moment when the seizure began, a few seconds later my heart feels like its going to beat out of my chest and then I start hyperventelating. About 2 minutes pass and the brain waves are back to normal. If you all have any doubts get another opinion or request more tests. I feel much better just knowing what's happening to me. The doctor added Keppra to my Lamictal and it has reduced the number of seizures!

Ive had this problem, thoughout my life Ive had totally random panic attacks, until 2006 when I had a seizure following a panic attack. Its horrible...but do what you can do to take care of yourself, believe me.

Hi Edwina, I was questioning my neurologist about this at my last visit a few weeks ago. I've had a few panic attacks before in my life, enough to know what they felt like, but in December I started having them more frequently and completely out of the blue. I was getting so frustrated with them because everything I normally try to stop a panic attack wasn't working. In fact even how they presented were different from a "normal" panic attack. i couldn't stop these and then they seemed to trigger a seizure. My neurologist told me that he felt the panic attacks were related to my seizures.