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Need help!

Sat, 08/30/2014 - 02:45

My wife had her first tonic clonic seizure in 2013 at age 26. Ever since then, the frequency and types of seizures has increased. For the first few months she would only have maybe 1 tonic clonic a month, but around February, she started having what I assume are absent seizures and myoclonic jerks. Every few hours she would just stop whatever she was doing and just stare. It's odd because she could be bending over or squating and still maintain her balance. Around the same time as the onset of the absent seizures, she started having these jerk seizures where she would repeadedly jerk her head only to the right. These started off slow then progressed to a rapid motion enough to where she recently tore a neck muscle and hurt her jaw from slamming it off of her shoulder. During both of these seizures she is unaware and does not respond. Eventually this became more frequent, happening now about every 30 minutes or so. The tonic clonic seizure frequency has also increased to once every 2 weeks. We have been to 3 nueros and she has been on multiple meds including Topiramate, Lamictal, Keppra, and Clonazapam and none have worked. She has had MRIs, two 24 hour EEGs, and was in Shand's hospital for 5 days for an EEG but nothing showed up. Apparently the little seizures didn't show up but we weren't there long enough for her to have the tonic clonic. One last thing, she has a great aunt that recently suffered an epilepsy related death at age 70 but cannot get any information from her daughter about symptoms her mom experienced due to family tension. Would genetic testing be an option? Any help or ideas appreciated. Thank you for reading.

Comments

I read your post and I see

Submitted by just_joe on Sat, 2014-08-30 - 11:09
I read your post and I see you are concerned about your wife.You posted she has had 4 different medications in about 1 1/2 years. It takes some time for somebody to get used to a new medication. After about a month or 2 the dosage can be raised or lowered. I know been there done that. After a dosage change he dosage can beraised or lowered again. Did any of that happen with your wife or did the neuros just switch her to another medication without weaning her off one and onto the next? As for her having 3 different neuros. Why 3 different neuros. Did she switch neuros because she didn't get teh results she wanted or was the neuro a bad neuro?  Or did you move to another town?  Whic me it took about a month to get used to the medication and then Doc changed the dosage which also took a month. Weaning a person off a medication while weaning them onto another medication also takes a month or 2. Which would mean the medications weren't taken long enough to really see if it was working and adjustments could be made. Tests are generally done to see if they can find anything that caused the epilepsy. The EEG is a test which shows the electrical out put comming from the brain. It can only read to a certain depth. If the abnormalities are deeper then they will not be picked up. I had 20-25 diferent EEG's which all came back normal. I also had what would have been the MRI of the 1960's (neuro-angeogram) That too came back normal. They found nothing on it. The last test was another EEG. I was tired and fell asleep in that EEG. That EEG came back with seizure activity in the left lobes of my brain. The neuros looked closer at the neuro-angeogram and by looking closer they found scared brain tissue cause by a hemmorage to the brain. SO if the tests al come back normal that does not mean everything is normal because the seizure activity is deeper in the brain. I hope this helps and se gets the assistanc she needs

Contact:919629705783

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2014-09-01 - 06:08
Contact:919629705783

Contact:919629705783

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2014-09-01 - 06:10
Contact:919629705783

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