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Possible Seizures?

Mon, 04/30/2018 - 19:08
Hello all! I’ve been a bit curious about this for a while, but haven’t ever brought it up with a physician out of fear that they may just think I was acting oddly/not taking it seriously. For a few years now, I have been getting these bizarre “episodes” while laying down. Most of them occurred when I would be looking towards the ceiling with the lights on and the fan blades turning. It seemed like my brain would try to sort of focus on the light but it would aggravate my eyes and make it feel almost like the room was starting to “cave in” - sort of getting darker around the edges and the light more focused on the center. During this, my body would feel like it was under an immense amount of pressure and I would begin to worry that once that pressure “broke” it would result in something bad. My muscles would feel very tense but after the pressure sort of subsided I would feel relatively normal. Always very lightheaded though. I also tend to feel extremely dizzy and lightheaded when I lay down or even when I’m trying to fall asleep. Last night I was asleep, and got awoken by the sensation as if something heavy was on my bed. I live alone so I knew no one else was there next to me. The “weight” of whatever was pushing down was so heavy that I woke up and immediately it felt as if an immense amount of pressure was pushing down on the entire front of my body, almost as if a press was being lowered onto me, and again with the feeling that if that pressure “broke” it would result in something bad. It happened another time almost instantaneously after the initial wave of pressure had subsided. It frightened me so much I was afaraid to fall asleep again, but must have ended up doing so because I remember having a dream following it about the situation, in which several people I knew had come to check up on me after texting them and asking them to do so (and of course there was no indication of me having done so on my phone when I woke up later). When I woke up this morning, my entire body (my lower back to my feet specifically) were super achey, almost as if I had been vigorously exercising the day before (which I hadn’t been. Some light work but nothing too much out of the ordinary or that would have made me feel so exhausted/achey). I don’t know if this was a similar sensation to the ones with the lights, or perhaps some sort of night terror, but the feeling of the pressure reaching a “breaking point” made it a bit of an alarming coincidence. I do not know much about seizures, but have kind of been browsing different articles and forum posts about them and it seems like there may be some similarities. However, I am not even certain where to start if these are possible ones! How could I explain these instances to a physician without them thinking I am just, pardon my phrasing, but...crazy? I want whatever this is to be taken seriously by a physician, but don’t know if there is a specific direction to start with? Such as a partial seizure, etc. Any advice would be extremely helpful and I’m super grateful for anyone who can help! This definitely has me pretty on edge, to the point where I’m a little worried about falling asleep alone in case something happens again. Sorry for the long post! Thanks, C

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