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Help! What Is Causing My Symptoms?

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 00:53

Topic: Medication Issues

I need some help figuring out if I'm having seizures or not!!

I started taking Paxil for unexplained severe depression and anxiety. It seemed to be working, but after increasing my dose to 30mg I started having strange side effects. At least, I thought they were side effects...

I have not yet been diagnosed with Epilepsy but I developed twitching, tic like movements, very similar to Tourette's syndrome about 2 weeks after increasing my Paxil dose to 30mg. I read the possible side effects of Paxil and because they included seizures and tics, I stopped taking the Paxil. Which was awful by the way...very emotionally difficult transition. I don't recommend Paxil.

Anyway. I have been off Paxil for 5 weeks and my tics did not stop! I continue to have my arms and legs and neck twitch in spastic movements at random, asymmetrically.

Additionally, my brain feels....tingly. I get strange buzzing feelings and tickles in my head, sometimes up to 120 times per day. Very hard to explain. It's almost like they come in cycles - I'll have a cycle of what I call "seizure like activity" followed by a cycle of extreme fatigue. It feels like someone flipped a switch and I go from agitated and twitchy/brain tingling to powered down, then eventually back to agitated.

Certain things can make the strange symptoms worse, like random loud noises or certain sounds, highly textured pictures, and perhaps caffeine, and a bad nights sleep means a day of worse symptoms.

On to my questions.

I am seeing a neurologist in search of a diagnosis. Could be temporal lobe epilepsy, or just some sort of dyskinesia. No clue!

But does anyone know if it could still be the Paxil? Are there types of seizures that happen while you're still conscious?? I have difficulty focusing but I do not lose consciousness. Are there types of seizures that involve asymmetrical random spastic movements?

I hope there is someone out there that has heard of what I'm going through. It's getting hard to keep myself calm!

Comments

Welcome What you posted could

Submitted by just_joe on Sun, 2015-01-11 - 11:09

Welcome What you posted could be seizures. But I am not a doc tor. As for the medication causing this issue. Well it can and it does take time for the medications to get out of the body completely and with some medications it can be 2-2 1/2 months. As for different seizures... There are many different types of seizures and in most of them the person does not lose conciousness. Yes there are some seizures that have random spastic movements. I remember my older brother telling mom I was having another spas attack from time to time. But then We joked about them which was a way to learn how to deal with my epilepsy and seizures. What I would suggest is taking this post along with you to the neurologist and do discuess this issue with him/her. I do hope this helps and yo uget the assistance you need Joe

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