Syncope, sleep syncope, seizure?
Posted , 2 users are following.
hello all, I was just looking to see if anyone else has experienced something similar to myself:
Around 7 years ago, I received an MRI and EEG to test for temporal lobe epilepsy, after suffering from bouts of DeJavu,, during which i felt a rush of heat, sweating, tunnel vision and generally a bit "funny" for around 30 seconds or so then i would snap out of it. The tests came back reading as normal, and the whole thing was swept under the carpet, so to speak. I wasn't diagnosed with anything and life continued as normal. I only ever really suffered from this when I was stressed out.
Fast forward 7 years, a couple days after Christmas '22, my girlfriend woke up around 6:30am, to find me stuck down the side of the bed, in a tiny gap between the bed and the wall. I had completely blue lips, was not breathing and had no colour at all. She quickly pulled the bed off the wall, i fell to the floor, took a big gasp of air and i came around about 10 or so minutes later. An ambulance was called, but the operator did not feel one was needed.
The following week i suffered very bad chest pains, we figured I had just hurt myself from getting stuck. The weeks following I found myself becoming very tired from fairly non-strenuous tasks, such as walking the dog.
In late January, my girlfriend woke again around 6:30am to me having what looked like a seizure. Again i was blue-lipped, no colour, struggling to breathe but this time shaking. I came around about 10-15 minutes after this and was able to answer fairly simple questions. During the "seizure" I appeared to be struggling to breathe, was bringing up phlegm and looked completely grey and blue-lipped.
i should mention that during this time I was fairly stressed as I had recently bought myself my dream vehicle which I had saved up for a long time for and I'm the kind of guy that stressed himself out for the fear of doing "the wrong thing". It was also just after Christmas which is always touch and go in my line of work as customers tend to hold back any money they have left over after Christmas. which obviously would have made me stressed too.
The following day I called my local Dr surgery to explain what had happened, the Dr i spoke to arranged for me to have my blood tested. All 3 tests results had came back as reading "normal". She had also arranged for me to have a meeting with the Neurologist at my local hospital.
Every night since the "seizure" in January, I have slept with a pulse-ox on my finger. for around 6 weeks after the seizure, I would regularly drop to around mid to high 80% Blood o2 levels during my sleep. An alarm would sound, I'd wake up, and after a few deep breathes my o2 would rise to a normal level. I also mentioned this to the Dr but not much attention was paid to this.
The result of the video call with the Neurologist was:
I have been diagnosed with epilepsy having suffered from one seizure, he did not feel he needed to carry out any test or scans and I have been put on epilepsy medication for the rest of my life aswell as being told to stop driving for atleast a year.
As you can imagine, this has not sat well with me, mainly due to the lack of tests. I am actually recieving an MRI this week after I insisted.
I've been doing my own research and today after searching "hypoxic seizures" on youtube, I came across a video of a German experiment in which they tested a load of fit young people, carried out a test in which they were made to faint by crouching down and breathing heavily then standing up quickly which made them faint. They then watched what happened and recorded the results. A high percentage of them suffered from what looked like a seizure after being unconscious due to a lack of oxygen for just a few seconds. This whole test was related to the condition Syncope.
After some more googling and searching, I came across Sleep Syncope, which can be brought on by low blood pressure and/or high stress, and all the symptoms sound like what I experienced.
My uncle has also experienced sleep seizures, has received all the MRI and EEG scans, which all came back as normal and his were put down to stress related seizures.
My question is, has anyone else experienced something similar, or have you been diagnosed with syncope and what were your symptoms?
Thanks in advance, SB.
0 likes, 2 replies
sasical72 SB24
Posted
Hello,
Sorry to hear, how scary for you!
Nothing similar sorry, but just wanted to say you should really push for tests, just saying it's epilepsy and putting on meds is really not good enough.
Have you asked your uncle about his exact symptoms? do they coincide with yours?
Keep pushing and good luck!
SB24 sasical72
Posted
thankyou!
Yeah, thats the bit thats really hard to just accept, its as if I've phone the Dr's about a sore leg and they've stuck a cast on it without an X-ray first!
I have yeah, his tests came back with no indication of epilepsy, they were thought to be stress related, but still got diagnosed with epilepsy anyway?