Anyone have seizures?

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I was just wondering if anyone has seizures, if they can be caused by sensory overload (such as a grocery store) and if feeling hot, dizzy, weird vision, and shaking might be an aura?

Hi SuperTrouper,

I have epileptic seizures. I can also induce hypoglycemic seizures, and sometimes syncope-like seizures probably related to the Long QT Syndrome, by heavy weight-lifting excercises. I haven't discovered a way to induce epileptic seizures, nor a way to totally preclude them.

The aura to my epileptic seizures are generally one of three main types: intense fear, divine ecstasy, and blase sensations with synesthesia. The fear and ecstasy have the strongest elements of deja vu with being unstuck in time with sense of full knowledge. The fear aura gives an accompanying unpleasant effect also to sensory overload (minimized my avoiding motion, sounds, seeing moving objects, etc., but darkness or my eyes being closed is also aggravating to the unpleasantness of the effect), while nothing in the environment triggers the seizure itself.

Migraines are more easily triggered by the environment, with intellectual boredom being the most reliable trigger for me for painful migraines. Prodromes and aura with both painless and painful migraines are longer and less intense than ones associated with epileptic seizures. Precipitating factors that are somewhat different than triggers for painful migraines are often scents of perfumes and other select odors. Painful migraines make me want to avoid most everything, while the painless migraines make me want to escape from the precipitating factors before the migraine expands and possibly morphs into severe pain. Some of the prodromes are "feeling dangerously good".

While I can reliably distinguish from the different sensations between migraines and epileptic seizures, most doctors can't. When they are very close to overlapping, if sensations like feeling hot/cold, dizzy/spinning, weird visions (illusions/hallucinations), and shaking/spasms (sometimes near to tonic-clonic like seizures), if they last less than 5 minutes, I call them an epileptic seizure, and if they last longer than 5 minutes, I call them a migraine (this doesn't always work, as one long set of variable migraines lasting for about a month ended up being a frontal subdural hematoma from injuries during sets of secondarily generalized tonic-clonic epileptic seizures, with two clusters about a month apart (chronic(?) on left side, and acute on right side when 911 was then called).

Autism and epilepsy are frequently co-morbid, and with many other "marker" impairments, if funding becomes available, I'll probably try genetic testing for things like Tuberous Sclerosis Syndrome, LQTS-2, etc.

Tadzio

I get overwhelmed when out in public - in fact VERY overwhelmed, but I don't have seizures.

Tadzio, thanks for the info. Do your seizures show up on an EEG? I doubt mine would, because in a small, dark, quiet room, I'm usually okay. It's when I'm overloaded (usually) that I feel strangely and "go away."

I get migraine and seizures and have a hard time lelling the apart. I the migraines usually give me hives afterward and thats about the only way I know the difference. I get small seizures throughout the day sometimes lasting a few seconds. These ones don't gennerally have an aura, but they do occasionally when the come in clusters. The clusters I think may be a long seizure actually, though. The small ones often produce small wrist movements, tightening of the neck and my head will change position slightly. The big ones usually happen in the morning or while I am sleeping and they make my jaw muscle either tighten up or flap, if they happen during the day they ussually just make me confused and dizzy.

I have had catamenial grand mal epilepsy since I was 13. It's been controlled for 5 years now, thankfully.

Here's a really good example of what happens.

I had a long day full of lots of sensory stimulation... everything from an MRI to a run into the grocery store to getting really good news to someone getting unhappy with me and upsetting me...

Came home. Sat down, chilled out, was here a while when I realized I'd be somewhere else (meaning mentally) for the last twenty minutes or half hour, so I lost some time.. and I was hot, shaky, headache, and dizzy. The TV, which isn't loud, was searingly loud suddenly, and the lights feel weird.

I'm coming out of it now.

I have complex partial seizures (used to generalize and become tonic-clonic when I was younger), thankfully under control for the last 14 years or so. I still occasionally get an aura (feeling like someone is pulling my stomach upwards) but haven't actually had loss of consciousness for 14 years (well, once when I had H1N1 flu and a fever of 104 F, but that was provoked).

It is hard to say whether what you describe is a seizure or not, without an EEG, especially since no one witnessed what you were doing or whether you were responsive during the "out of it" period. It's hard to say whether it is just sensory overload or a seizure. I'd speak with your doctor about it and see if s/he can get some tests, like an EEG or even a prolonged video or ambulatory EEG if there is still question after a routine EEG. Since 30 percent or so of people with autism also have seizures, it's worth checking out.

~Kate

Thanks, Kate. An ambulatory one would make the most sense, as fluorescent lights seem to induce whatever this state is more than anything else.

there's a good clue that it is epilepsy. fluorescent lights actually flicker. do you remember the old CRT monitor and how you set the "refresh" rate? 60hertz would hurt your eyes but when you turn it up to 80hz+ your eyes and brain perceive it as a sustained image and it doesn't hurt your eyes. well fluorescent lights are like looking at a CRT monitor that is turned waaaaay down low. fluorescent lights are actually pulsing around 30hz. Not low enough for your brain to register they are flickering but enough to hurt your eyes and send epileptics into seizure. also it is interesting to note most people with FXS are diagnosed with AS and it mentions "Seizure disorder" as one of the possible characteristics of somebody with FXS. http://www.nfxf.org/html/checklist.htm

I have fits , only when Ive socialized to much when I find things to over whelming I get hot, dizzy, do 360 spins, light headed, I shake uncontrolabley, I feel like Im going to faint, I start throwing up and I lose bladder control. I used to have these fits at night Id wake up and be shaking and instantly start throwing up and lose bladder control and Id be doing 360 spins Id freak out even more because I dont know whats happening to me and to this day I still get scared at night to sleep because Im worried that I will wake up and have to go through it again. I have never had this looked at. I have no idea whether they are symptoms of epelepisy or not I dont like them they make me so tired and exchausted afterwards and Im embarrassed to talk about it most of the time. I also get these fits after I have a meltdown.

Hi SuperTrouper,

My simple partial seizures weren't detectable by a scalp electrode eeg. Interictal eegs often aren't valid and reliable, and during my lone Medicaid eeg, I didn't have any complex partial seizures nor any secondarily generalized seizures.

During the last years at university, one of my social psychology instructors opined that what my classmates took as my having a heart attack, was probably a temporal lobe epileptic (TLE) seizure, and library research soon explained most all the the paradoxes over my entire life. At first Medicaid would only pay for Anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) as trial-and-error prevention of seizures, with no eegs/MRIs/CTs, despite a neurologist authorizing such tests. The tried AEDs didn't work, and the side-effects were a bigger problem. The Geschwind Syndrome was already well developed, and is irreversible, and to avoid the Catch-22 with Medicaid's trial-and-error drugs, I didn't fight Medicaids stopping drug treatment when the neurologist vanished after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The seizures continued to kindle for about ten years when tonic-clonics became too frequent and too dangerous with life-threatening injuries, and the expenses of an emergency neurosurgeon after injuries was enough to get Medicaid to pay for reliable brand name Keppra for the last few years. The Keppra prevents full tonic-clonics, but not the partial seizures, nor some of the secondarily more generalized seizures (some published research papers hint this as another clue that the originating cause is more weighted as a Tuberous Sclerosis Syndrome).

A posting from last year still has the abstract of the articles available on eeg electrodes and the Limbic System's influence on social and artistic interactions/interpretations:
The article "Electroencephalographic studies of simple partial seizures with subdural electrode recordings" by O. Devin sky, MD, S. Sato, MD, C. V. Kufta, MD, B. Ito, MD, D. F. Rose, MD, W. H. Theodore, MD and R. J. Porter, MD: in NEUROLOGY 1989;39:527, examines the epileptiform discharge detection frequency of subdural electrodes versus scalp electrodes.

EEGs using scalp electrodes miss detecting/localizing many partial seizures.

The abstract of the articles is at: http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/39/4/527

I've been looking for more articles referencing Patrik Vuilleumier, a neurologist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and possible connections between TLE and "Brain-hacking art: Making an emotional impression" by Jessica Griggs at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727781.300
and Dr. Vuilleumier at: http://labnic.unige.ch/nic/htms/vuilleumier.html
For example, including TLE: http://www.epi.ch/_files/Artikel_Epilep ... o_2-07.pdf

Tadzio

Actually, I'm not sure if this is a seizure as such, but yesterday when I at a festival show, I was queueing up to get a burger (because I was really hungry), and this horrible loud brat started having a tantrum right behind me, and it hit my leg (it didn't mean to) and it started rolling about on the floor absolutely SCREAMING at the top of it's voice and my ears were hurting until I couldn't take it much longer. So I really quickly walked away, and I was so full of hatred of this brat that I suddenly went literally blind (just for half a second). I'm not sure if this was anger and hatred mixed together. But I'm sure what this horrible brat was doing right down by my feet is enough to make anybody walk away frustrated.

I f*****g HATE TODDLERS!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !