UNEXPLAINED SEIZURES

Hi . I'm a lot older than you, 55, and I had a seizure completely without warning at Easter.It was a tonic clonic seizure, I was completely unaware of anything until I was in the ambulance.

It was extremely scary especially for my husband who witnessed it and resuscitated me.

However I was given MRI and EEG scans. They.found a small lesion on my brain but don't know if this was the cause. I am now on Lamotrigine which hopefully gives me a good chance of not having another.

I think you should go back to your doctor and demand an MRI and EEG. I'm not sure why they didn't do this before but you need to have peace of mind.

Please don't try to deal with this on your own, your doctor will help and could possibly prescribe medication to give you a good chance of staying seizure free and take away.some of the fear.

Dear Munier,

    I have been on this forum for just over 7 months and like you I was looking for answers. I started to have seizures after a heart scan . I has two CT scans with days after. A year later I had a lung scan. I had a seizure shortly after the scan. Two weeks ago I had a seizure on a stretcher in the ER after badly spraining my ankle from a fall on a street. Unbearable pain brought on the seizure. Some times air flight will bring on a seizure. Bright lights, flashing light etc. There are so many triggers. You have yours. Don't live in a bubble. I have learnt it is now apart of who I am now. It is a phyical thing. It is not who you are as a person. It will happen suddenly when ever. It takes it course and the seizure will have its end. When you have your warning, get into a safe position, on the floor,couch or bed. Tell the person your with so they can help you to be safe. You are not alone with this problem. There are thousands of people around this big beautiful gem of a world like you who are also suffering. It has been two years for me now. Doctors are not all knowing and what they do not understand they always say is mental. I have been throught it all, test etc...clear. These doctors are not in your  back packet all the time. Out of the blue seizures happen. Uncontroled moments that is what they are. Just be safe if you can when they happen. I though I would never have a life again two years ago but I do. Mary been there...let me know how you are doing.

Hi Ya munier

I suffered major general grandmal siezures for 37 years, have been sizure free for more than 8 years now.

The time inbetween seizures is a nightmare? for me i felt as if i was on death row. The fear and anxiety it causes is and has been relativly ignored by psychology. I think the closest thing you can relate to it is death row syndrome.

Ask your, GP or Neurologist to refer you for councelling, they can help. They will also make sure you get your EEG and MRI quicker if it is causing you anguish and pain.

If your tests come back negative, check out (AWS) alcohol withdrawal syndrome? dont worry you dont have to be an alcoholic to suffer from this condition. Read a paper where many adult people have been mis-diagnosed epileptic when they were in fact suffering AWS.

If i had a wish right now it would be for you to never to suffer a seizure again.

Wish you all the best with your results.

Allan

 

Hi I thought I would comment if not to ease your mind but to help with knowing that there are other people who feel just as you do.

I am 34 now but I have been suffering with NEAD since I was 21.

I have anywhere from 0-20 seizures a day and the last time I was a complete month clear was over 4 yrs ago.

Is it just the 1 seizure you have had or have you had more seizures since you last wrote?

Over the years I have kept so many diary and have clutched at so many straws to try and cure myself as all I want to be is the old me but unfortunately that person has gone.

I think this was the hardest lesson for me.

There are many things you can do to limit the seizures but the best thing I have found is not to be scared, which was the hardest thing I have ever had to overcome.

I find everyone else's worries are more stressful than you trying to live your life as best you can.

Hello, I know this is an old post but I thought I'd share my knowledge for those who still haven't had your question answered. I was diagnosed with epilepsy back in college 14 years ago. When the neurologist(s) prescribed medications they have never mentioned any side effects. After 4 years I experienced noticeable cognitive impairment. When I confronted my neurologist she denied the symptoms as side effects and it took both me and my family 30 minutes of arguing with her to convince her that decreasing the dose will help. Within 3-6 months I had returned to the state before the cognitive impairment. In 2016 (4 years later) after taking a dose I experienced a new concerning side effect that I eventually found to be caused by Lamictal (brain fog). I confronted my new neurologist and he claimed that it wasn't a side effect and would not decrease the dose. The only way for me to limit the damage of the side effect was by skipping the dose following the brain fog and then go back to the original routine (this lasted till 2020). In 2019 I started having seizures again and my nurse practitioner (not neurologist) insisted on increasing the dosage to control the seizures (even though I was extremely against it because I had decreased that particular drug for the side effects) but she wouldn't listen. Within 4 hours of taking the higher dose ALL of my cognitive impairment side effects as well as the tremors and spasms that I was having from that drug more than quadrupled. I felt as if I was on my way to having full on dementia (my mother had all the symptoms from her drugs and a genetic disorder, so I easily recognized them). I went from having 1 spasm per day (only occurred when I was sitting with legs elevated) to having 4-5 per 3-4 minutes (I felt that if I had stayed at that dose, I'd be a vegetable by the end of the year). So by day 3 I switched back to the previous dose. Unfortunately some of the damages (cognitive impairment, specifically short-term memory loss and an inability to multi-task) were permanent. My Nurse Practitioner agreed to lower the dose as long as I increased the dose of a new drug I had just started (to treat the spasms). During the adjustments I took 1/2 of a 200 mg Lamictal (as instructed) and within 30-45 seconds of taking it, the entire left side of my upper body and possibly lower (was distracted by the effect) went numb. I immediately took the other half of the tablet and the numbness gradually faded. Unfortunately ever since then I experience that numbness at least once per day at random times. After being diagnosed with a hormone imbalance as well as a genetic disorder (and experiencing odd symptoms unrelated to the drugs for 3 years) I decided to look for a natural way to fix my problems (or at least most of them). I've been researching the human anatomy, nutrition, diseases (causes, symptoms, cures/treatments), cancer, infertility, the different systems of the body especially hormones, neurological, central nervous), the effects of nutrition deficiencies, how the body is effected and how the body heals itself, pharmaceuticals and their ingredients, FDA's regulations on approval, how the pharmaceuticals operate in the body from the moment you consume them to the moment they interact with the brain or other organs depending on condition). In this research I found that the human body was designed to heal itself, and when something was wrong it would tell you with symptoms. Now sadly doctors today look at symptoms and treat them with pharmaceuticals (which is essentially a band-aid) instead of testing all of the nutrition levels (more than have of the medical schools in the US don't require all students to take a nutrition course (even if the course was 7 hours over a 10 year period the board said its too much time. In the early 1900's someone with influence in the medical society brain washed the medical society into believing that nutrition has little to no affect on one's health, diseases, cancer, symptoms, etc. So most doctors, physicians, etc won't test nutrition levels. Numerous studies over the last 60 years have discovered that nutrition deficiencies cause symptoms and if the cause isn't treated soon enough then the symptoms can become permanent conditions. Now based on common sense and basic understanding of how the body uses nutrition to heal itself, it's safe to assume that diseases (in most cases) are just bundles of symptoms of nutritional deficiencies. Therefore treating the deficiencies as well as making the permanent lifestyle changes (healthy, organic foods, exercise, avoiding synthetic chemicals) will lead to the body healing itself. But this process is not like a fad diet. Some repairs must come first before others. It's like climbing stairs, you must take one step at a time. And then maintain a healthy lifestyle and pay attention to your body. A lot of doctors, physicians, etc are more interested in money than curing the patient or they've been brain washed into believing that only western medicine (which is no more than 200 years old) (while traditional medicine is more than 10,000 years old) is the only cure for ailments. And they definitely get offended when you know more about your problem and what treatment you need than they do. Through all of this research I did come across a few interesting facts relating to the causes of seizures and they're related to nutrition (some associations mainly medical claim that seizures cause the nutritional deficiencies but, as long as you know how seizures occur in the brain, how pharmaceuticals interact with the brain to prevent and/or stop a seizure then it's clear as day that nutrition is the culprit to some seizures). If you have a seizure make sure to get your MAGNESIUM, SODIUM GLUTAMATE, CALCIUM levels checked. Magnesium deficiency is extremely common in America and is caused by chronic stress or high stress. A symptom of magnesium deficiency is seizures. Some pharmaceuticals block Sodium Glutamate from entering the neural pathways in the brain, therefore preventing its interaction with calcium (I haven't figured out why calcium is being released into the neural pathways yet (but some pharmaceuticals block calcium from entering the neural pathways). A research study that I read recently suggested that the cause of epilepsy (some) is due to either too little of sodium glutamate or too much sodium glutamate (personally I believe it's due to either excessive sodium glutamate or magnesium deficiency or both). Otherwise there's no reason for a pharmaceutical that blocks sodium glutamate from entering the neural pathways (deficiency is unlikely because sodium glutamate is a non-essential micronutrient (the body produces it naturally)). So long story short keep track of your nutrition. BTW I'm not a doctor, physician, or any other medical professional. Do your own research and make your own decisions.