Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with seizure

Help regarding partial seizures

gibbsjd77 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:35:44 -0800

I have never had seizures before. I am a 24yr old male. Recently I had multiple partial seizures which lasted approx. one hour each time. They took place over the course of one week. Since my last episode I have been mild/moderately dizzy, and see lights/spots/visual disturbances everywhere I look. The severity of this has varied, but it is always there. I have felt this way now for over a week. It is really difficult to function normally. My doctor was somewhat helpful, but gave no advice on how to deal with or preferably stop my current symptoms. I would appreciate any suggestions/answers from anyone who is familiar with this problem. Thank you for your time. I found this following description online. I believe this is what I have. I was dieting very strictly while taking Lamictal. Personally, I think that is what caused my seizures.

Nonconvulsive
Complex partial status epilepticus, or CPSE, and absence status epilepticus are rare forms of the condition which are marked by nonconvulsive seizures. In the case of CPSE, the seizure is confined to a small area of the brain, normally the temporal lobe. But the latter, absence status epilepticus, is marked by a generalised seizure affecting the whole brain, and an EEG is needed to differentiate between the two conditions. This results in episodes characterized by a long-lasting stupor, staring and unresponsiveness.

Epilepsia partialis continua is a variant involving hour, day, or even week-long jerking. It is a consequence of vascular disease, tumours, or encephalitis, and is drug-resistant.

Under the definition for Status epilepticus one of the causes is:

Dieting or fasting while on an anticonvulsant. Those with epilepsy or who are on anticonvulsants are advised to consult with their physicians prior to dieting or fasting

Crazy brain stuff going on.

missuswayne — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:45:16 -0800

Amateur neurologists, please read! What is going on in my head?? I get basically an "electrical shock" feeling from time to time in my head. Lately it occurs only when I'm driving (scary!). Basically once every couple months I'll turn my head to the right to check traffic and I immediately feel like I've gotten shocked or stuck with a hot poker in the back of my head (specifically the lower right). Not on the skin, INSIDE my head. It lasts only a second, but during that second I see white - it's like I'm unconscious for a moment, although I might just be distracted by the sensation. The pain is quick but excrutiating, and when it passes i feel exhausted or stunned and have a tender, sore area on the back of my head. This part usually passes after a half hour. I don't believe it's ever happened when I've turned my head to the left.

I've read about brain zaps, but it doesn't quite match what's happening to me. I've had these as long as I can remember, at least since I was 15 or so. I'm 36 now. Other relevant info: I have been on Zoloft since 28 for depression and mild anxiety, I have a lifetime history of headaches (not migraines that I know of), I have frequent deja vu, have experienced sleep paralysis a couple times, very vivid dreams almost every night, and regularly get tremors or twitches in my fingers, toes and eyelids. Recently diagnosed with hyperthyroid, although it may be just postpartum thyroiditis. I have recently began to wonder if any of this is connected and worrisome (as in some type of seizure), or just regular electrical activity in the brain. What do you think?

How much legal trouble could I get into?

geodave — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:14:20 -0800

I'm hosting one of those "confessional" websites, and I want to know how risky it is to post clearly-illegal "confessions". I hate vague questions like this, and I hate even more that I have to ask one.

I host a confessions website, and most of them are simply explanatory, standard and neutral from a legal standpoint.

We've had about twenty come in that are blatantly illegal, perverse, and downright scary. If it were me I'd almost be inclined to just delete them, but I'm wondering if they can be posted to the website without exposing myself to law enforcement officers trying to track down who confessed such things.

This is the setup:

The confession form exists on my site, a standard shared server (Dreamhost). All it does is take a textarea field and email it to a Google Mail address I maintain. Then, I check the email, copy the confession and stick it into my site's database. This extra (pointless) step obfuscates things like IP addresses and timestamps so it's nearly impossible for me to figure out who confessed anything.

So, if I host a blatantly evil and illegal text confession on my site, how exposed am I? They can go nuts subpoenaing both my hosting provider (Dreamhost) and Google Mail, but could I be at risk of something ridiculous like a computer seizure?

Both involved servers are in the USA, but I live in Canada.

Seizure or Panic Attack?

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:08:13 -0800

A few days ago my roommate collapsed in our hallway. Did she have a seizure? My roommate has a history of anxiety, phobias, and ADD type problems. She is prescribed aderall which, as she explains, keeps her from napping 4+ hours per day (above and beyond her normal night time sleep)..

She also self-medicates with marijuana to a large extent, without which she can be fairly grouchy and sleepy.

None of this is my business other than the fact that I live with her and should be aware of any health issues that I might directly deal with - what she does on her time is her own choices.

That being said, on more than one occasion she has had hot flashes directly after smoking, to the point of whining and complaining heavily about how hot it is, and sometimes rushing off to tear her clothes off. She thinks this is a panic attack, and claims that it always happens when her brain has convinced her that something is physically wrong with her and she might be dying.

The latest episode was caused by a bruise on her finger, which had a slight throb to it (as bruises sometimes do). The fact that her finger was black and blue, combined with the throbbing led her to believe that there was a blood clot in her finger that was going to travel to her brain and kill her. She admits that, while this is happening, a part of her brain is fully aware that she is just freaking out and that she is fine.. but that part clearly isn't in control.

I don't know if she hyperventilated (she has never appeared to be breathing differently than normal) or what, but she fell down in the hallway heading to her bedroom. I went to see what happened, and she was on the floor twitching in a very seizure-like way, with limbs and head flopping around. Within 5 or 10 seconds she came out of it, sat up, and looked confused about what happened. I tried to get her to sit still, stay off her feet, and breath but she was out of control and she got up and rushed to the couch, where she did a face-plant into the cushions. This time she lay face down for 5 to 10 seconds, but with no twitching at all. When she rolled over and looked at me she, again, had clearly been "out" for that 5 or 10 seconds, because she didn't remember it.. when I turned around to get her a glass of water she rushed off to her room again, likely to remove some clothes. This is when I heard a second loud bang and thought she fell in the bathtub. Luckily she had only fallen inbetween her dresser and bed but she hit something along the way with her chin and split it open pretty good. I didn't say anything to her right away (if it was a panic attack, the last thing she needed was to be told her chin had a big bloody hole in it). I let her calm down for 10 minutes, during which time she was lucid and there was no more odd pass-outs, nor the frantic running-around the house type behaviour. I finally pointed out the cut and told he she might look at it in the mirror and consider going for stitches, which she did do.

For someone who is so panicked, she seemed very non-plussed with the whole affair after the fact. The emergency room doctor agreed that it was likely a panic attack but maybe because that is how she described it. I clearly told her that she was on the floor twitching but I don't know if she told the doctor that.

End of the day: anyone have anecdotal evidence that would suggest that this could have been a simple panic attack, or vice-versa?

Canine Epilepsy

I_Love_Bananas — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:32:06 -0800

Your experiences with canine epilepsy? So my dog has developed idiopathic canine epilepsy (3 seizures in 3 days). Blood work showed no physiological causes- it "just started", thus the "idiopathic" designation.

Anyone been through this? He’s an adult beagle and my vet recommends starting a dosage of Phenobarbital. It’s been very stressful and difficult to see him go through the seizures. I’d welcome any of your stories/recommendations.

Low cost MRI?????

goalyeehah — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 06:51:42 -0800

Is there such a thing as low cost MRI's? I had a seizure recently in my sleep and need to get MRI done for research and literal peace of mind. I do not have health insurance and am looking for low cost options. Are teaching universities one option?

Eligibility for Medi-Care/Medi-Cal

goalyeehah — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:06:33 -0800

How do I go about applying for Medical/Medicare? Last Monday evening, I woke in the middle of the evening in the middle of a seizure. I went to see a neurologist on Wednesday for tests and medication. The costs are through the roof and I do not have medical insurance. A friend has mentioned Medicare/Medi-Cal as an option. I was led to believe that this was for those over 65. I am a 44YO Male Yoga Teacher in good health.

Help me stop the iTunes seziures on Windows XP.

chairface — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:59:02 -0800

iTunes 7.X on my Windows box has seizures during the last several seconds of a song. My search fu has failed me. I have a moderate collection of music (18G) on my iTunes setup on Windows XP. During playback on some (but not all) songs, iTunes will lock up my machine for a few seconds during the last 5 seconds of a song. It's maddening.

I just stumbled across one song that has this seizure problem every five seconds for the entire last minute of the track (which is all silence). I have crossfade playback turned off. The track is not marked as part of a gapless album.

My boss has the exact same problem with his iTunes setup. Any idea how I can make the problem go away?

Apologies in advance for asking yet another iTunes question, and thanks in advance for any advice.

Help me learn more about seizures, specifically simple partial.

good for you! — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:14:35 -0800

Help me learn more about seizures, specifically simple partial. I've been taking Wellbutrin (& Lexapro) for about 1.5 years to treat depression. My shrink told me about the possible risk of seizures with the Wellb, and I nodded & said "Of course, I'll let you know right away if that happens."

Poking around on www.crazymeds.org recently, I came across this in reference to Wellb:
"The simple answer is, if it helps you and you neither drink too much nor have a history of seizure events, then go for it! But wait, do you even know what a seizure event is?"
After reading about the different seizure types, I realized that my answer to that question is a big fat NO.

It seems that the most commonly caused type is simple partial, so what is a simple partial seizure like? I've read symptom pages & descriptions of seizures, but I really would like to know what I should be looking out for. I don't think that every twitching eyebrow is reason to call my shrink, so when does a twitch==seizure? (So to speak -- I know there's more to it then that...)

To the best of my (limited) knowledge I haven't had any seizures; this is mostly for future reference. If it turns out that I have experienced seizures, I promise I will call my doc asap. Also, if anyone wants to email me, it's in my profile.

How can I properly time my boyfriend's epileptic seizures?

Anonymous — Mon, 22 May 2006 17:48:12 -0800

My boyfriend has epilepsy. So far I've only witnessed two seizures (tonic-clonic, or what they used to call grand mal). While I felt mostly prepared for them (I'd done a lot of internet research) I found timing them quite difficult because while the beginning was distinct, the end wasn't. His seizures seem to start with rigidity and convulsing, which lasts a minute or so, but then he falls into loud, gutteral, heavy breathing. The 'in' breath sounds a bit like a loud, ragged, snore, and the 'out' breath is a loud raspberry. In all my reading online, I found only one reference to this breathing, on an epilepsy forum: "The loud snoring is called stenorous breathing and it's when the trachea is collapsing or obstructed, and that's dangerous. Turning blue or purpole means a serious lack of oxygen content in your blood stream, which can result in brain damage and even death". This breathing goes on for a while and then tapers off.

So I guess I have two questions:

1. Is this breathing normal when someone's having a seizure? Is it dangerous? Do we need to do something about it?
2. When is the seizure actually finished? The 'heavy breathing' phase seems to last a long time - five or six minutes - but it gets softer towards the end and then he just rolls over and falls asleep. I'm worried that I'll miss my cue to call an ambulance if he's in status epileptus (he's never gone into status epileptus, I don't think, though his seizures seem to be quite long).

Anyone here got any experience in this sort of thing? I will definitely be asking to go with him on his next appointment with the neurologist so I can ask questions, but that won't be for a few months.

My partner had a weird seizure type thing!

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2006 03:01:09 -0800

My partner suffered a collapse yesterday, perhaps someone can enlighten us as to what she experienced. Firstly, my partner is a 30 year old woman with multiple sclerosis (although fortunately it doesn't affect her a great deal).

This has happened twice now, though this time was more worrying. She called me up, angry, and argued strongly with me over something very trivial. This is very unlike her, as she normally only gets mad when it's justifiable, and never gets that angry.

Call me an asshole but I hung up - it was a really trivial matter, and I thought she was being silly about it. Talking to her didn't help over the phone, and I didn't want to get riled up (I also dislike arguing). I figured she would work it out, and I would talk to her when I got home a couple of hour later and smooth it out in person.

Soon after I got an SMS saying `I'm not OK . help' I called and just got incoherent sobbing. I dropped what I was doing and raced home, to find her on the floor next to the phone. She was kind of crying, not breathing too well.

She later described it as losing control over her muscles. I managed to get her sitting up, talked to her, got her to breath more calmly. She could respond but not clearly.

She didn't want an ambulance, and within 20 minutes I had her on the couch where she regained the ability to talk properly, use of limbs etc. An hour later she was okay, but feeling `hollow', lacking energy.

This happened once before where she became angry out of proportion to what was going on, and far more than she normally would. She then lay on the couch for about half an hour before I realised she was in a weird state, and I talked to her and sat her up.

That time, as with this time, she was not really aware of the passage of time.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? We don't know if the outburst of anger is the cause or a symptom. Could it be related to the MS? Could it be a pseudoseizure or `hysterical fit'? Any answers appreciated.

Since I won't be replying, I'll just say that we plan on checking this out with a doctor.

witnessing epilepsy

mdn — Fri, 27 May 2005 01:30:59 -0800

this comment made me wonder: what is it like to witness an epileptic seizure? I am interested in hearing about your experiences, the specific feelings and thoughts that are brought out by, watching someone have a seizure. Possibly useful for something I am writing, but mostly I am just curious because of that comment. (I have never seen one.)

Is this a seizure?

Jairus — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 21:17:45 -0800

My brother was in an argument with our mother, and he said something in his head 'popped', and he started shaking and convulsing. What happened? I wasn' t here when it happened, so I can't give any more details than that. He's already en route to the hospital, and he was lucid and talkative when I saw him, although he was a bit twitchy and his pupils were saucer-sized.

Is this a seisure, caused by the stress of an argument? A popped blood vessel? Something else entirely? We don't have a history of epilepsy or anything along those lines in the family.

put him down before it gets worse?

malaprohibita — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:03:08 -0800

Assuming my dog has a brain tumor, should I have him euthanized? (I found some good advice here, but it just wasn’t enough). Maybe my dog has a brain tumor. Maybe he doesn't. He does, however, have seizures at regular intervals. The seizures occur approximately every three to four weeks. Usually it's just one, but occasionally (including this past weekend) they come in clusters. Now he will sometimes suffer tremors that knock him off balance or even cause him to fall. He falls down easily when walking (he has a scrape on his chin from a bad one the other day), and has a hard time getting up because of a bad hip. Sometimes he’s blind, and sometimes he’s not. He whimpers a lot at night now, and does not like to be alone. My wife and I don’t let him in the bedroom because he acts restless and won’t let us sleep. Sometimes, but not lately (that I’ve noticed), he tries to eat weird things like the stove handle or wooden tables.

I've taken him to the vet several times, and already decided that the expense for an MRI is just too great. That, and I don't want to put him through it. He's currently on 487.5 milligrams of Phenobarbital a day (he’s 100 pounds), which includes a recent increase of 48.75 milligrams per day since the last seizure.

What I don’t want to do is prolong his suffering, if indeed he is suffering. He still seems happy overall, but my fear is the seizures may eventually cause enough brain damage to wear away his personality or kill him outright. It just doesn’t seem worth it to keep him going through this every so often, but I don’t want to do it unnecessarily. This is obviously a tough decision, and I appreciate any advice or insight.

Can you identify this pork?

geoff. — Tue, 06 Jan 2004 20:00:37 -0800

ID Required? Are you required to show an ID to a policeman? What about car searches? (more inside) This is all pertaining to the good USA:

Recently at a party the police came and everyone was required to show an ID that the police could write down and check (presumably) if you are wanted for anything or on probation. I always wondered the legality of it but was too afraid of saying "I don't have to show you an ID" in fear the cop would bust me for something I didn't do just for talking back. I know we don't have a national ID system (well an official one), so I don't see why cops expect everyone to have an ID.

Also when talking to a lawyer friend I asked if cops are allowed to search your car without probable cause. Say I was just speeding or didn't use my blinker properly, the cop pulls me over and asks if he can see the trunk. The lawyer friend said that legally cops can't do that without probable cause (smelling marijuana smoke, etc.). If they find anything he said, it wouldn't be admissable into court -- but that's very tenuous as the cops would most likely "remember" something that was probable cause.

Not that I have any worries about this but such small legal things really bug me when cops expect you to do something and was wondering if any MeFis have experience or knowledge of personal rights when it comes to sitautions as these.