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New..sound familiar to anyone??

Wed, 03/02/2005 - 11:54
Hello,I am new here and I was wondering if I could run a few symptoms past you guys? I have an appointment with a neurologist next week and a CT scan too but I'm not really sure if it's all necessary. two Saturdays ago I woke up pretty tired ( I had only had a couple of hours sleep) an hour or so later my face started twitching. It seems to be confined to my right side. Basically what happens is that my mouth, lip, jaw, cheek and tongue start spasming on the right for about 30 secs to a minute then it goes away for about 5 mins if I am lucky and starts all over again. When it happens my speech and swallowing are pretty much usless. When I went to emergency the next day (I've really never been too sick in my life so this was really unusual for me) the doctor ran some blood tests to check for deficiencies (all normal) and gave me some muscle relaxants (no use). I finally got in to see my doctor last thursday and she consulted with a neurologist who suggested that I try Tegratol (sp?) . This seems to be having some effect as I went a whole half an hour without a twitch yesterday. Basically what I want know is does this sound familiar to anyone... Do I have epilepsy. I have been feeling quite healthy for some time but I do have an uncle with epilepsy. although we were all pretty sure that it was brought on by a combination of alchohol and computer use in the early 80's. thanks for letting me rant..Kathy

Comments

RE: New..sound familiar to anyone??

Submitted by batman on Tue, 2005-03-01 - 23:24

Yes Kathy,

With what you’ve described about “when it happens my speech and swallowing are pretty much useless” is a very strong possibility that you have epilepsy. Reason I’m saying this is because I’ve had the speech part of the problem myself, for 18 years now. This is called an aura, which falls into the simple partial seizure category. As for your “mouth, lip, jaw, cheek and tongue start spasming on the right for about 30 secs to a minute“, and repeating over and over again, and you’re aware of this happening, then it should easily fall under the types of partial seizures.

 

The continuing follow-up visits to your neuro and tests, like the CT, are necessary to diagnose and determine what can be helpful to control the seizures, if a seizure diagnosis is found.

 

Alcohol can be a source for a person to have a seizure, but I don’t know about the computers used in the early 80’s. This must fall into the highly false belief of putting something in a person’s mouth when they’re having a seizure. Number One Rule of first aid used when seeing a person having a ‘grand mal’ [tonic/clonic] seizure is...

DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THE PERSONÂ’S MOUTH!!!

Please let us know how things turn out.

Bruce J

Yes Kathy,

With what you’ve described about “when it happens my speech and swallowing are pretty much useless” is a very strong possibility that you have epilepsy. Reason I’m saying this is because I’ve had the speech part of the problem myself, for 18 years now. This is called an aura, which falls into the simple partial seizure category. As for your “mouth, lip, jaw, cheek and tongue start spasming on the right for about 30 secs to a minute“, and repeating over and over again, and you’re aware of this happening, then it should easily fall under the types of partial seizures.

 

The continuing follow-up visits to your neuro and tests, like the CT, are necessary to diagnose and determine what can be helpful to control the seizures, if a seizure diagnosis is found.

 

Alcohol can be a source for a person to have a seizure, but I don’t know about the computers used in the early 80’s. This must fall into the highly false belief of putting something in a person’s mouth when they’re having a seizure. Number One Rule of first aid used when seeing a person having a ‘grand mal’ [tonic/clonic] seizure is...

DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THE PERSONÂ’S MOUTH!!!

Please let us know how things turn out.

Bruce J

RE: New..sound familiar to anyone??

Submitted by gsness on Wed, 2005-03-02 - 11:54
Hi Kathy!I guess you know that without the right tests itÂ’s really almost impossible to tell if you have epilepsy or not. BUT it does sound like some of the symptoms. I donÂ’t have a problem with the facial twitching so much; but speech impairment is a common problem for me during a seizure, and it usually means a worse one is coming on... Please get the tests and I hope everything is all right!Blessings,gsness

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