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Advice Needed: Husband Does Not Believe He Has Seizures...
Thu, 07/20/2017 - 17:10Topic: New to Epilepsy.com
My husband is having night seizures. After looking all over this site I am realizing that they are most likely NON-epileptic Seizures, because I think they are caused due to the high stress he is under, being exhausted and possibly because of his blood sugar. The first one was in November and I woke with the horrible noise of him forcing air out...(not a nice noise). He was jerking around and non responsive. He also was having a very hard time breathing... and was gurgling saliva. I had no idea what was going on, so I called 911. By the time they came, he had "come to" and was extremely upset that I had called the ambulance and refused to go to the hospital. He also refuses to believe he had a seizure. Then is happened again in of the following year. Only this time he was in our basement working on something. He must have either fallen asleep on the spot (he was very tired and irritable that day) or maybe it just came on. I heard a loud "thump" and went to check on him. I found him on the floor shaking and bleeding from his head (from hitting the edge of something as he fell). This time I called the ambulance and I made him go to the emergency room but it was very difficult). He came to again and thought it was ridiculous that I had called for an ambulance and said there was nothing wrong..etc. They kept us overnight and did an MRI, EEG and Catscan. All the tests came back clear...which to him proves nothing is wrong. He was prescribed some epileptic medicine...but he refuses to take it because he does not have epilepsy...or to him seizures. Now it's July and he just had another episode the other night...it didn't last as long, but he fell into a very deep sleep after. I did finally manage to wake him (not sure if I should have or if I should have just let him sleep), and took him to the restroom and back to bed. He was really out of it. He went back to sleep after a while. The next morning he was upset that I had woken him up and he again did not remember anything that happened. After what happened in May we made changes to our diet, and he was working on trying to stay relaxed and stress-free. That night and this whole week it has been tough at work. The weather has been very hot and humid and I know he does not drink enough water with how much he sweats off at his job. I am wondering if what cause this last one was exhaustion mixed with the heat and dehydration and if in the future should I force him awake or just let him fall back into sleep once the seizure stops. Also if anyone can give me some support on how to deal with the fact that he does not believe me, or if anyone is experiencing this with their own partners.
Comments
This sounds a terrible
Submitted by mariet_5926de5df37df on Sat, 2017-07-22 - 07:42
This sounds a terrible situation to be in and for you to be experiencing these frightening episodes. I am fairly new to epilepsy and also for some reason I can't see the reply post you got, so apologises if I am repeating things. It seems strange that even when he is injured he refuses to accept anything is wrong. So maybe he is quite scared and worried. There is obviously something quite wrong going on and if it is epilepsy then it sounds like you've worked out the triggers.The fact that he can't remember what has happened is also significant. Apart from a mate of his rigging up a convince him. But maybe the way is to tackle his worries, maybe he ia frightened he won't be able to carry on working and this is making his stress worse. Have to go as internet time up. gfood luck
Sorry meant to put rigging a
Submitted by mariet_5926de5df37df on Sat, 2017-07-22 - 07:43
Sorry meant to put rigging a camera
you can't force him to
Submitted by Amy Jo on Fri, 2017-07-21 - 03:56
you can't force him to believe but you can film him if it happens again which should be when you can demand an extensive physical and then follow up with a neurologist specializing in seizures. it isn't clear what's going on but better diet, lower stress and such can reduce the number of seizures for someone with epilepsy, only a diabetic seizure would clearly be a non epileptic seizure of what you list. the emergency department is not where one goes for diagnosis regarding different seizure conditions as the only emergency seizures are ones that don't stop and seizures from health conditions other than epilepsy (which are somewhat easy to check for so they likely would have noted those on prior visit).