'Seizure like episodes'

[Jade McKarthy]

I know a young girl that is 15 years old.  She has been having "Seizure like episosodes." She has been to ERs, Doctors, Neurologists, had several tests and no one has been able to completely identify what is worng. She had eegs, ekgs, catscans along with others. Her eeg came back abnormal. Last spring she was struck in the center top of the head with a bat while playing softball. Her ears began rining and she almost passed out later that day.  The next day she had her first episode. After that she would have them anywere from daily to weekly. Then her last one was on August 31. After that her eeg came back normal. They had stoped and now she has had another. She is able to feel them comming on, but sometimes when she feels them coming on they don't come. When she has one her body becomes limp, her eyes twitch at a half open flutter, and her body shakes. The doctors don't want to call them seasures because she stays coherent durring them and is able to answer questions.  After it is done she remembers very little of what happend durring the seasure. She is currently on no medication. She has become very distressed over this problem.  She has not been able to relate these to anything other then the slight possibility of stress. Please help.

[CCF-Neuro-M.D.-JT]

The most important thing that she needs to do is figure out whether or not these are actually neurological seizures so that she gets the appropriate workup and treatment.  Whenever there's a question of what a spell may be, we like to admit the patient to an epilepsy monitoring unit, where they're hooked up to a continuous EEG monitor as well as 24hr videotape.  We then attempt to "capture" an event in the next few days so that we can look at the EEG and video to see if it's a real seizure.  If she has a spell and the EEG is completely normal, then it's unlikely that these are really seizures.  They may represent stress, psychological problems, or even cardiac problems (although usually there's an EKG attached too).  Psychiatry, antianxiety/psyche meds or counseling may need to be initiated. IF on the other hand, there is a change on the EEG then she's probably having seizures and will need treatment.  Just because you stay awake and answer questions does not mean this isn't a seizure.  Have her discuss this with her parents and primary care physician to see what direction they want to pursue. Good luck.

[jan]

It seems some drs. only know of one type of seizure.  Partial seizures include those that you don't lose conciousness.  

Here is a link for more info and a link to a forum:

http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/answerplace/

http://neuro-mancer.mgh.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=33&SUBMIT=Go

I hope this is of help to you.

[headproblemz]

This sounds sort of like me. I take Tegretol and haven't had a seizure since. But prior to my first seizure, I also had ringing in my ears. I was, however, able to stay coherent during the auras that I had. Nevertheless, they were quite annoying and a scary. Perhaps an MRI would be helpful.

[Jade McKarthy]

The problem with the epilepsy testing is that they are so unsecduled she could be there for weeks and they could capture nothing.  The nurologist sugested that they may try this, she had sugested this in the begging part of September and she did not have anotherone untill now.  So, being able to capture one of these would be next to impossible.

[jan]

I didn't have a seizure during my 48hr  video eeg, but it did show spikes and sharps, which was good enough.

[CHADDY]

The good  thing about the seizure unit is that they will put you through a lot of things to try and cause a seizure to manifest itself.  It is a good idea to have one of those.  Several of the neurologist that I have seen have said though that sometimes a seizure is located deep enough in the brain that a normal EEG doesn't pick it up, except for the branches of nerves that it affects, if that makes sense.  Clinically I have been diagnosed with focal point seizures from the right hemisphere of the brain and a lot of the same things have happened to me in the aura part of it, but during the seizure I cannot respond at all.  I have had them turn into grand mal as well.  Some of the unexplained events though might be soon explained.  They are now checking for Myasthenia Gravis and possibly coming up ALS.  I am scared a little, so I know what the scary feeling of not knowing is like.  I went for about 4 or 5 years before they diagnosed me with seizures, although sometimes events did show up on the EEG.  I hope though that all can be figured out and your daughter will make a full recovery.  God bless and best wishes to you!  Chad

[wishingyouwell]

i have epilepsy(seizures)complex partial )they are right there are many different types of seizures some of which you can remain completely aware of your suroundings .it seems to me you need to go to a neurologist  or a neurosurgeon and have them to look at her ,a reg doctor is not going to be able to diagnose her i am at lost if they have not already refered her to one. what needs to be done is a  mri to find any lesions the blow may have caused, in most cases it can be seen on mri .if the blow caused a lesion or lesions on the brain it can trigger seizures.i have a lesion on my left temporal lobe which they are going to do surgey on to stop the seizures because they have tried 4 meds and none are working .if her doctor does not refer her to a specialest tell her parents to seek out one  themselves .may god bless and i hope things work out for her i know she scared and doesn't understand what is happening to her and not knowing is going to be the hardest for her.god bless.wishing you well

[Annalia]

The very best doctor for dx and evaluation of seizures, spells, seizure like activity is an epitologist.  You can find them at pediatric and adult comprehensive epilepsy centers.  The Epilepsy Foundation has a list of some of the centers located nationwide.  We found ours at the local childrens hospital here in St. Louis.  Both of these facilities are usually involved with a medical teaching university.  You can try your closest medical/teaching university.  Sounds very much like epilepsy but what the root cause is....well an epitologist would be the closest to being able to dx.

Hope you find your answers.  You can look up the epilepsy foundation at www.efa.org to see if a center is located near you.

[EpilepticInFlorida]

I am a 24 yr old female and I suffer from epilepsy.  For 20 years, I was diagnosed as having nothing more than migraine headaches.  I'd experience flashing lights that obstructed my vision, deja vu, terrible migraines, dizziness, disorientation, and much more.  When I finally went to a doctor, he looked at my symptoms, put me on immatrex, and sent me home.  Years later, after losing a job due to the lack of knowledge of what I had been suffering from, I was finally diagnosed correctly after seeing various doctors.  My advice to you is to visit a neurologist.  He or she should be able to point you in the right direction.  if I had seen one sooner, I might have been alright by now.  Those symptoms sound a lot like seizures.  I wouldn't overlook the problem if I were you.  Also, there are many ways to develop epilepsy or seizures.  In some cases, it's genetic.  I still haven't figured out where I developed my condition though.  
I have had numerous tests done, all of which I have found to be somewhat helpful.  As for the overnight stay in the hospital, after being admitted, the doctors will take you off of all medications that you may be on.  They hook you up to an EEG unit and proceed to try to induce seizures.  The seizures are recorded to monitor any physical happenings during the episodes.  In many cases, the doctors will see the signs of an oncoming seizure before the patient does.  The brain waves begin to increase quite rapidly.  When my seizures started, the nurses would come into the room and begin to time the episode.  They'd give me a password, any word, just to see if I could retain any information.  They'd ask questions and wait for me to respond.
I currently go to the Cleveland Clinic in Florida and soon I will be having surgery at the main facility in Cleveland.  Best of luck and remember to do yoiur research!    :)