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I'm 21 and I have Pseudo Seizures..
Fri, 12/01/2006 - 04:43Hi everyone. My name is Allison. For the past 3 years now, I've had pseudo seizures. They haven't been really bad up until this last month.
I started having them at the age of 17 (almost 18) and my neurologist diagnosed me with them. I accepted it gladly because I thought, hey, maybe I'll grow out of these. So here I am now, 3 yrs later and now they are getting more frequent (as of last month) and longer in duration. Mine are really weird. I've started to punch people. I can hear everything that goes on around me for the most part. I go to see my neurologist again on Thursday. For now, I'm secluded to my couch and computer (where I go to college at Phoenix Online) and when Im even back here, Im constantly being called to see if I am conscious. My mom, uncle, and friend who is living with me for a short period of time are here to help me. I have seized in pools, showers, and in bathrooms where people have had to crawl underneath and unlock the door for my mom to access me. Yesterday was a doozy. I had a seizure for 2 hours in bed. The ambulance was called and I was taken only to be given another shot of Atavan and my Depakote levels checked. The ER knows me by name, and so do most of the area's life squad staff. I honestly don't know what to do. I'm so tired of being left to sit on the couch all the time. I'm tired of these seizures. They have put me in such depressions a couple times that I was commited to the Mental Health Unit. Tonight is the first night I have found any type of support program for seizures or pseudo seizures. Could someone please give me some advice?? I'm probably going in for a 2 week long EEG study and I dont know how Im going to do it with school. Im ready for this EEG and if they are willing to admit me the day they have the appointment, Ill go. I just need a laptop to borrow so I can keep up with school.
Well I guess this takes care of what I wanted to say.
Thanks.
Allison
Comments
Re: I'm 21 and I have Pseudo Seizures..
Submitted by wldhrt13 on Fri, 2006-12-01 - 09:55
Allison,
I am sorry to hear you are suffering with pseudo seizures. I am fairly new to this board, so please don't mistake my findings in any way as "expert" advice. I had to GOOGLE the term pseudo seizures because I was unfamiliar with it. It yielded among other websites this one:
http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic403.htm
When I read it, my limited understanding is that these type of seizures do not come from electrical discharges in the brain but rather some kind of psychological origin. It's apparantly some type of somatoform disorder. It is generally accepted that patients are with pseudoseizures are suffering from a conversion disorder.
So then I GOOGLED conversion disorder and came up with this link:
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic112.htm
This is absolutely fascinating, the mind as I understand it, in an attempt to deny the painful psychological trauma actually coverts this trauma and manifests it into actual physical symptoms. So the seizures are very REAL, they are just not going to be helped by AED's or surgical intervention etc. like Epilepsy would.
It would appear from the literature, that the more educated the patient is about this condition, the better the prognosis (outcome). From what I gather, AED's (anti-epileptic drugs) will be ineffective against pseudoseizures and EEG's will come back normal because the underlying cause is not electrical discharges. Treatment is usually is long-term psychotherapy; which can involve as you forementioned the use of anti-anxiety medications such as Ativan.
Perhaps the best place to start if your neurologist gave you a firm diagnosis of pseudoseizures, would be to find a good clinical psychologist to help you attempt to work through the abuse with your father and the gas explosion. It would seem that once that resolves your brain will stop converting trauma into seizures.
good luck
~pamela
Re: I'm 21 and I have Pseudo Seizures..
Submitted by fzMousie on Fri, 2006-12-01 - 11:29
Allison, I am so sorry to hear about what you are going through. However, I do have one question....
Is this your first EEG? Did they diagnose you as having non-epileptic seizures without doing an EEG?
I'm wishing you all the best with your upcoming EEG.
Re: I'm 21 and I have Pseudo Seizures..
Submitted by Looking4AwayOut on Fri, 2006-12-01 - 04:54
On top of all of this.. the anxiety that is behind this is a gas explosion and abuse that happened almost 5 yrs ago. I was a little girl growing up with a father that verbally and mentally abused me. I forgot to put that in my first post. Sorry. Allison