Community Forum Archive

The Epilepsy Community Forums are closed, and the information is archived. The content in this section may not be current or apply to all situations. In addition, forum questions and responses include information and content that has been generated by epilepsy community members. This content is not moderated. The information on these pages should not be substituted for medical advice from a healthcare provider. Experiences with epilepsy can vary greatly on an individual basis. Please contact your doctor or medical team if you have any questions about your situation. For more information, learn about epilepsy or visit our resources section.

When describing your seizures to your doctor...

Sat, 09/29/2007 - 13:16
Do use more technical terms, describing them as absence, tonic-clonic, etc and so forth seizures, or do you just try and describe them or give the description other people have given you, "You looked like a fish out of water flopping all over the place", and hope that's given them a clue? Personally I'm thinking of cornering my neurologist and telling him my understanding of each type of seizures and what I think mine are, I'm tired of sounding idiotic while trying to describe these things, esp. since they're showing more and more of a pattern that makes me think the absence and partial seizures were never controlled to begin with and they're triggering secondary generalized seizures, rather than starting out as tonic-clonics to begin with, but I have had doctors in other specialties not appreciate it when patients use technical terms. So, how do you talk to your neurologist?

Comments

Re: Re: Re: Re: When describing your seizures to your doctor...

Submitted by Gina Marie on Sun, 2007-09-30 - 23:37
Ugh, your seizures change every three months? And here my neuro was getting upset because mine had changed about every three to four YEARS. you should go visit him, that way I wouldn't look so problematic :D j/k, that seriously does suck, is this common with the type of epilepsy you have?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When describing your seizures to your doctor

Submitted by wichitarick1 on Mon, 2007-10-01 - 14:25
peace R.C. Hi At least you under stand what is going on ,No matter what it needs to be and must be written down I am rotten at this and now just simply forget my notes and stuff like that . There is no denying what is written on a calender or better a note book with dated pgs. . lol. I used to fully understand what the various types of szs. were and figured out I was having them and now after huge amounts of them I simply can not remember what is different with each one ,and it takes 8 days to recover from a gmal which I had 2/3 of last week so it is a bit confusing . "show what you know" a nurse told me that. I just got out of the hosp. for side effects from meds that if I would have continued on I feel I would be dead. read, read , read, Rick

Re: When describing your seizures to your doctor...

Submitted by bernardcwe on Tue, 2007-10-02 - 08:29
So, how do you talk to your neurologist? My wife's doctors have always asked her pointed questions about her seizures, what happens, etc. and then explained what type of seizure they were (most likely). We try to be precise when describing seizure activity. If we are certain we know what type of seizure it was, we use the clinical name for it. Otherwise, we describe what happened. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Check out my chart of alternative epilepsy treatments.

Sign Up for Emails

Stay up to date with the latest epilepsy news, stories from the community, and more.