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Guess I'm nuts after all...Psychogenic Seizures
Sat, 01/27/2007 - 09:58Now, to those of you reading this, please do not take my title to heart. I have a bachelors in psychology and I am being very flippant in my terminology, but I mean no disrespect to anyone.
Anyway, after a year of searching for an answer to my various health issues, I have been given a diagnosis of Psychogenic seizures. Now, this is a two-sided issue. On the one hand, for the last two weeks I have had these jerking spells a couple of times a day, and after being admitted to the hospital for two days of EEG video monitoring they decided the episodes were Psychogenic. As difficult as it was for me to accept that, I did, and the episodes have not occurred in the two days since I was released from the hospital.
On the other hand, I don't believe that everything that I have experienced in the past year is due to mental disorder. I have had issues like phlebitis (recurrent inflammation of various veins in my arm and leg) and anemia, been diagnosed with carpal tunnel and plantar fascitis (foot problem that I believe was accompanied by nerve pain due to the type of pain and existing altered sensation in one toe), found to have nystagmus (sign of possible neurological dysfunction), and I have had neurological episodes that did not feature jerking, only this strange buzzing sensation in my head. During these times I cannot talk very well (it is difficult for me to concentrate on speaking) or move very well, and they have featured strange things like nausea, a feeling of being paralyzed in my legs, increased respiration, blah blah blah.
Right now I feel like I have been kicked in the gut. I feel like all of my work toward a diagnosis has been sabatoged by the label "Psychogenic". I am afraid that no doctor will ever take me seriously again. My cognitive functioning is going downhill, but the neuropsychologist has been working with the epilepsy center and because of my education is assuming that I have the knowledge to fake all of this and actually stated that he probably couldn't test me because I would know the testing material. Nevermind that I reassured him that I didn't get to take the class on psychological evalution and testing.
This is yet another low point for me, and I could really use some advice...
Sam
Comments
Re: Guess I'm nuts after all...Psychogenic Seizures
Submitted by wldhrt13 on Mon, 2007-01-29 - 14:28
Whoever incinuated that psychogenic seizures mean you are faking it , well they don't know much about it I guess. From what I have read on the subject, of all the people accurately diagnosed with psychogencic seizures, only a tiny subset have any kind of deception involved. The majority of folks with it, have some kind of conversion disorder. Meaning their body converts psychological trauma into physical symptoms. And it is NOT under the person's control because it is an unconscious process. So the seizures are quite real, their etiology however is not from electrical disturbance as is the case with most seizure disorders. Here are 2 really good links which describes in detail about psychogenic seizure:
http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic403.htm
http://www.epilepsy.com/articles/ar_1112967056.html
bottom line? Second opinion. period. Electrical disturbances in your brain needs to be completely ruled out before handing you the other diagnosis; because, the treatement is somewhat different but may also include AED's.
pamela
Re: Re: Guess I'm nuts after all...Psychogenic Seizures
Submitted by slhmurphy on Mon, 2007-01-29 - 22:16
Thank you all for your comments. To clarify, Pamela, I believe that I have both psychogenic and epileptic seizures. I know that I am not necessarily faking it with the psychogenic ones, but I have learned to accept that I have control over them, and that preventing them largely means finding some other outlet for my anxiety/overstimulation. I think the other issue with the psychogenic ones is that I was crying out for help because I have had such a hard time getting the rest of my health issues diagnosed.
Christina, my idea remains some sort of autoimmune disorder. I have worked with a rheumatologist and an MS specialist. While the ms guy said that it didn't appear to be ms, he said that he couldn't rule it out. My thought is that it is MS either in the early stages or that it is very slow to progress, which is good for me, but bad for diagnosis, which means I will have to encounter some sort of disability before it will be diagnosed and treatment can begin.
Sam
Sorry abt your recent
Submitted by red1152 on Sun, 2007-03-25 - 23:54
Sorry abt your recent diagnosis...I think that sometimes it is best to try switching doctors. I know I wouldnt want to keep seeing a doc that treated me like that. Maybe another neurologist would be more sensitive...Guess I've been lucky to have a great neurologist from the get go!! Hope things start going well for you!!!