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Anxiety or Seizures?

Thu, 01/07/2016 - 07:41

I am trying to determine if some symptoms I experience (vary between every couple weeks to monthly) are more typical of an anxiety response or a seizure type of behavior. I have had suffered various anxiety symptoms for a number of years as well as the following symptoms. I'm aware that sometimes stress can trigger seizures. Additionally, my father has epilepsy and used to have grand mal type seizures but they are currently controlled with medications. 

Here is the typical episode I will experience that is of concern to me. I will be in the middle of doing something and all of a sudden I will get a strange feeling like I am going to lose consciousness/awareness, my face will feel hot, I will feel very worried like I have to stop what I'm doing. Sometimes, I can fight through this feeling and the episode doesn't fully manifest. However, on most occasions, after this feeling I don't completely lose consciousness but instead lose awareness and will unable to complete any tasks. My mind will wander to nonsensical thoughts or perceptions for a few moments and I will not be able to communicate coherently. After it is over, usually in a matter of minutes or less, I will feel embarrassed and upset at having "lost control" of my conscious self. I have no complete memory of my actions, or what I was seeing etc during the episode.

The second more common symptom I have is a type of sleep disturbance (which may or may not be related to the above symptom) where I will be in bed sleeping  and then abruptly jump out of bed in a confused manner. I have been told sometimes I will make a groan noise like I am under duress. Sometimes I will wander around and turn on a light or sit on the couch and then go back to bed. These happen sometimes multiple times in a night. I have incomplete awareness at those times, am not fully conscious, and usually have incomplete or no memory of them occurring. 

I have seen a neurologist for both issues. I had a brain MRI a few years ago and epilepsy test with the strobe lights etc and eeg and everything cameback normal. I have been to the doctor numerous times but still don't have a clear answer. I'm just wondering if these are more of an anxiety issue or more of a seizure type problem or both. 

 

 

Comments

There are more types of

Submitted by just_joe on Thu, 2016-01-07 - 18:16
There are more types of seizures then most people know. Some of the things you posted could be seizures or parts of different seizures. As for tests and having a normal eeg. I had 20-25 different eegs that came back normal. The MRI of the 1960's was normal. I had been thru a battery of tests for epilepsy that week and the last test was another eeg. I fell asleep in that eeg and it came back with abnormalities, Abnormalities is what the neurologists are looking for. By knowing where those came from they then went back and looked at the MRI of the 1960's and a closer look found scared brain tissue. Basically what I am saying is many people have everything come back normal but they still have epilepsy. If you like the neurologist then do discuss this issue with him and yes show him this post. He may want to run a loner or sleep deprived eeg. I hope this helps and you get the assistance you need

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