Non-epileptic Seizures During Dentist Visit

[tthayne]

I was at the dentist and getting laughing gas and novicane for a filling, I have had it many times with no trouble.

I was feeling great and the dentist put on the rubber dam and then I started shacking and passed out. While they were taking me to the ER in a wheel chair I had a nother shacking seizure type thing they said they both lasted about 30 seconds.

I had what they told me in the ER later was a
Conversion Disorder and Sudo Seizures because my blood and CT scans were normal.

I was wondering where to find information on this and how to be tested. I have Disocciative Identity Disorder and wanted to know if the 2 problems are common together.

thanks in advance for your help

[Quixotic1]

Pseudoseizures indeed are more common with people with "psychiatric" disorders, but the longer I am alive the more I doubt that psychiatry is even a legitimate and separate field of medicine.  Every year brings more understanding of the physiology behind mental disorders.  Current dogma is that pseudoseizures are a kind of dissociative or "hysterical" disorder.  I've thankfully met a couple neurologists who refused to categorize them at all.  They agree that the patient is suffering and are adamant that they not be dismissed as crocks.  At least they do not require, and do not respond well to, anti-convulsant medications.

After the vertigo first disabled me and I repeatedly hit the ground often with seizure-like episodes which caused severe contusions, repeated concussions, and serum chemical changes.  I had a 5-day EEG video-telemetry to prove my seizures were non-electrical, that is non-epileptic.  The neurologist that did this almost danced with glee and arrogance.  (He also sang "I TOld You So!" with triumph.  He told me that now that I "knew" they were false, I could straighten up and just stop having them.  He knew I was a physician and he gave me a 6" stack of articles on pseudoseizures, hysteria, and personality disorders.  I was the sickest I had ever been and his mockery injured me more than any other event in my life.  I was willing to agree with hard data that the episodes were not epilepsy.  It was good to be off the anti-convulsants.  But, the damage to my self-esteem took years to heal.

I don't know what they are.  They have finally gone away, I hope.  The body has many ways of telling us that we are hurt and suffering.

From your description a single 20minute EEG is not sufficient to prove that what you suffered was a pseudoseizure, especially since your were under the influence of a psychoactive (brain function altering) drug, the nitrous oxide.  If it happens again, go elsewhere for the evaluation.

Good luck, you have a lot to deal with.  I pray you find more compassionate healers to help you.  Quix

[Christy H]

Just because your seizure did not show up does not mean that it was a sudo seizure. I suffer from electrial and chemical seizures. For many years i was told that i had sudo seizures but i ended up at the seizure clinic in UCLA where they discovered that in fact i was having both electrical and chemical seizures. For the electrial seizures i take topamax and for the chemical seizures I take prozac. Prozac helps level out chemicals in the brain and therefore can level out my chenical seizures. i have not had  a seizure in 5years and i feel great.
good luck with your research and let me know how your doing!
Christy