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Sister with epilepsy--super concerned

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 13:52

Hello All, 

My sister was diagnosed with epilepsy in her 20's. She started out having seizures in her sleep, and didn't realize that she was even having them at first. They diagnosed her after she had a grand-mal seizure and they called the ambulance. Since then she has had several grand-mal seizures, and my mom says she has absence seizures as well. She is now 36 years old and she is having many issues. She has severe depression and has a history of drug abuse (which really didn't start until she in her mid to late 20's). Her doctor gives her Xanax to manage the anxiety that she has and she abuses them each month when she gets them filled. I don't think she has taken any recently, but I can't be sure. The day before yesterday, she was with her friend and she was acting strange. She was moving slowly and not responding properly. He said that she screamed and started holding on to him as if she was scared. He had to physically put her back in the car. He seems to think she had some sort of a seizur. Ever since then she has been acting weird. At first my parents just thought she had a seizure and she was recovering from it. It sometimes takes her several hours to really come back to normal. Now she just sits and stares off into space. She doesn't talk much. She hasn't had anything to eat or drink. She is a smoker and she hasn't even smoked a cigarette, when asked she couldn't even remember if she was a smoker. When you talk to her she responds and she is able to talk, but it is not her normal self. She seems like she is scared or worried. She seems confused, and she is not able to function. She has been like this for 48 hours or so. My parents even had my other sister sit with her while my dad took my mom to work. I told my parents to take her to the hospital (I live in another state, so everything I know is second hand). My mom had to physically dress her; although she said that she was going to get dressed, she just stood there and didn't actually do it. My mom had to lead her to the car and make her sit down. They took her to the hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. My mom told them of her history. They did blood work and put her in the psychiatric center for a few hours and then they released her. They said that she is just majorly depressed, they want her to go to outpatient therapy 3x per week. It doesn't seem like depression to myself or some of my other family members. I read online about non-convulsive SE (status). Does anyone have experience with this? My mom says that she seems a little better, but not much. She physically put her to sleep when she went home from the hospital. The hospital didn't do an EEG, even though my mom told them of her epilepsy (they don't think that is what it is). I had my mom call the nurologist's office (after hours) and see what they thought. My mom spoke with a different Dr. (not my sister's typical Dr.) and he agreed that it was likely depression. Everything that I have read online points towards NCSE; although, she doesn't do any of the typical eye blinking, or hand gestures. I would appreciate any thoughts or comments. 

Comments

If she is having back to back

Submitted by just_joe on Sun, 2015-11-22 - 10:53
If she is having back to back seizures or clusters of absence seizures she needs to be seen by her neurologist. Back to back seizures has happened and I went into status having 40 convulsions and hour. I was out for 3 days and it took another week to even get back to what people might say is normal. I was in the hospital for about 2 months to make sure the medications were set and the theraputic levels were where the neurologists wanted themSO if she was in status having absence or partial seizures or even had clusters of seizures she will need to rest so she can buil up her emergy.Amy Jo also has it right too.

This really sounds like non

Submitted by Paul.mom on Thu, 2017-06-29 - 06:06
This really sounds like non convulsive status to me . My son is 11 and was diagnosed with this last year .It started with him seeming very confused the next day his teacher contacted me to say he just couldn't seem to function in class and follow simple instructions.  By the time we got to see neurologist his behaviour and personality were severely affected.  Hallucinations, laughing uncontrollably, crying and being very Agressive . Fortunately his neuro recognised his symptoms and had emergency eeg which showed non convulsive status.  He was treated me with high dose of steroids which took several attempts before it worked . He gas struggled at school for a while but returned to his normal self personality wise. After 12 months we noticed he has started to struggle with maths . 1 out of 16 in maths test . Had eeg repeated and found he is back in non convulsive status although his personality has not changed much he feels very tired at times . Your sister sounds very much like he was last year as at times he just couldn't respond when we spoke to him and would cry without ant my reason . I really feel for you as this is such a frustrating condition .

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