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Complex Partial Seizure?

Sat, 02/07/2015 - 23:17

Back in October, after a 22 day migraine, I was witnessed, on three seperate occasions "staring and being unresponsive".  This was witnessed, by four coworkers,while on a business trip and they said that the episodes lasted between 30 seconds to 3 minutes.  Several months before that I had noticed that I was missing meetings (I never miss meetings) at work and was forgetting things, forgetting where I was going easily, my driving was becoming very wreckless, and my husband kept swearing we would have conversations that I had absolutely no recollection of having.  I was falling asleep way too easily in my chair at home and time was escaping me, often times while driving.  I figured I was tired and stressed and it would pass, but it kept getting worse.  I was having trouble talking, coming up with the right word for an object or item,  remembering, my headaches kept getting worse and worse and I would get really confused.  I would write things down at work and a few days later I would read them and it would look like a first grader wrote it, with misspelled words and grammar issues.  Finally, I went to a neurologist told them about the episodes, they ran standard tests, which were all normal.  Since I was having severe migraines and the episodes were witnessed the doctor put me on Topamax and is planning on doing a video study when her lab is set up in a month ( her office just moved). So, right now I am in this limbo place where I don't  have a definite diagnosis, my lab work said complex partial seizures, but I don't know if I was having seizures or was it just my migraines....the topamax definitely seems to be helping.  I no longer feel like someone is pressing a reset button on my brain every two seconds.  I don't feel confused all of the time and I am remembering conversations and meetings again.  Would it work this fast?  I have been on it for about a month now and I feel human.  Does this sound like seizure symptoms or just migraines?  

Comments

What you have posted do sound

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2015-02-08 - 11:25
What you have posted do sound like seizures. Yes it is possiable for your medication to resolve those issues. I say that because it dies take time for medication levels to build in your body. As for your migrain head aches those too could have been seizures. As far as telling you which type of seizure I am no doctor and I was diagnosed long before they went into specialties.  As fror a definite diagnosis>>>> WEll all that is needed to diagnose someone with epilepsy is 2 seizures. Tests used most often are the EEG and an MRI. One shows the electrical output comming from the brain. The other shows the brain from all angles. They can come back normal but that does not mean you don't have epilepsy or a seizure disorder. All a seizure is is "an electrical impulse hitting wrong in your brain (start of a seizure), The impulse hitting wrong causes a chain reaction (the seizure itself)  The EEG can only read to a certain depth on the brain and if the electrical impulse hitting wrong is deeper then the EEG will come back normal. If by looking at the MRI they do not see anything on it it too will come back normal. The testing which you will be going thru can give them information. If you have a seizure during that time period they will be able to video it and they can look closer at the MRI and the EEG during that time period and check them both to see if there is anything different on the MRI. With me I fell asleep during the last test which was another EEG. In that EEG they saw abnormalities (seizure activity and not a seizure) Once they knew where the activity came from they then looked closer in the neuro-angeogram (MRI of the 1960's) and by checking closer they saw scar tissue on my brain. The scar tissue is what is causing my epilepsy. Doc (current neurologist) ran tests like you will be having done and he confrimed the diagnosis and went farther. The original diagnosis was the scar tissue was before or afterr birth. Doc said it was between 6-8 yoa. When I was 7 I took a fall hitting my head on one side spinning by head arround and slamming my face into a rail knocking 4 teeth out and cutting my tongue and the inside of my cheek which took 32 stiches to fix. Back in the 1950's they were more worried about getting my mouth fixed and the missing teeth then they were about the knot on my head.  I hope this hepls

Lori , I am going to address

Submitted by nightfighter@nc.rr.com on Sun, 2015-03-15 - 13:14
Lori , I am going to address the situation regarding loss of words, spelling and confusion. This is called Aphasia. Possibly gets to me about 5 times a year but yes it is frustrating. I have complex partial seizures but the main point is that the speech center of the brain has been "Shaken Up "  by electro-chemical activity aka a seizure. When I was younger, I kept fighting this and it was driving me insane or stressed out. The main thing to do is try to understand when it is happening.Your speech center is like a file box in your brain. When the box is hit files ( your vocabulary ) are knocked out of order. The Brain does have the capacity to place the files back in order but this does take some time. ( 3 hrs. for me ). When this happens, Speech, Writing, Hearing & Comprehension Take a nose dive. Sometimes it just effects speech but without your vocabulary you are in trouble till the speech center recovers. Try to relax yourself if possible. Fighting the situation will just stress you out.

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