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Night time seizure or bad dream?
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 12:24I have a history of partial seizures. They include fear/dread, depersonalization, altered sensory experiences (sights and sounds lose meaning, etc.). Last night I woke up after a bad dream, and I can vividly remember that while waking up, with my eyes still closed, I had strange visual experiences (I can only describe this as patterns, sort of like the ones they make you have when they do EEGs with strobe lights).
Maybe this was just part of the bad dream, although it is completely unrelated to the content of the dream. Thoughts? I'm going back to the neurologist next month. I'm hoping this is NOT a partial, since I have to be seizure free for 6 months before I can drive. I'm on Trileptal now... finally got up to full dose last week.
Anyone else experience anything like this? How would you know if you're having partial seizures at night?
Comments
Re: Night time seizure or bad dream?
Submitted by IndyMark on Thu, 2010-05-06 - 15:18
I don't know whether it is related or not, but I have gotten a solid 8 hours of sleep on several occasions recently and awakened feeling absolutely exhausted. I'm guessing some part of that is related to stress (work is really busy these days) but I can barely get out of bed I'm so exhausted. Last night was one of those nights-- lots of sleep, but wake up feeling super tired.
How does your partner detect that you've had a seizure (what symptoms do you exhibit that lead to that conclusion)? My complex partials involve pacing, but simple partials don't really have any behaviors associated with them (not that I'm aware of).
Re: Night time seizure or bad dream?
Submitted by NEURONIGHTMARE on Thu, 2010-05-06 - 13:28
I have RTL intract partial epilepsy with a long history of noctornal seizures. Due to the nature of sleep cycles, its very difficult if not impossible for us to recall these. The only way I got to the bottom of it was by having a regular bed partner or a video cam next to the bed. I only know I've seized because I wake up with that awful headache in the a.m. or my partner tells me I had a seizure during the night. I understand your frustration and hesitate to tell you this but I do drive. I've struggled with many employment discrimination issues too. Sometimes, things have loop holes and you've got to decide which one you want to jump through and which one you don't.
Hope you find some answers and get a good night sleep in the meantime!
I have RTL intract partial epilepsy with a long history of noctornal seizures. Due to the nature of sleep cycles, its very difficult if not impossible for us to recall these. The only way I got to the bottom of it was by having a regular bed partner or a video cam next to the bed. I only know I've seized because I wake up with that awful headache in the a.m. or my partner tells me I had a seizure during the night. I understand your frustration and hesitate to tell you this but I do drive. I've struggled with many employment discrimination issues too. Sometimes, things have loop holes and you've got to decide which one you want to jump through and which one you don't.
Hope you find some answers and get a good night sleep in the meantime!