Seizures In The Night

Posted By Ben Price on April 21, 1998 at 13:33:09:







I am 24 years old and I seem to be in pretty good physical shape except for my problems at night. I
have seizures only when I sleep and I generally have 1 to 6 a month. I always know when I have had
an episode when I wake up because my tongue is extremely gnawed and my muscles are extremely
sore. I had never had this problem until about 6 years ago while I was asleep in the barracks on my
military base. I spent some time in the hopital on base before being forced to withdraw my
enlistment. I returned home and got in contact with a neurologist for consulting and counciling. They
performed many test (EEG,CAT SCAN, etc.) but came up with nothing. The Neurologist put me on
200mg Dilantin but the side effects seemed to cause me more pain than the actual problem. It made
me very nauseated and I couldn't eat or drink anything without it coming back up. I lost 40lbs. in 4
months. The Neorologist changed the medicine to 200mg tegretol, but the side effects were exactly
the same. I got disgusted (being the stubborn person I am) and quit taking anything and lost contact
with my neurologist for a little over a year. Recently, I had a strange episode during the day while
with some friends at lunch. The conversation that was going on was like Deja-Vu to me. I feel like I
could have told you every word that was going to be said. This caused me to go into a state of
unconciosness, but I could still hear what was going on. This kind of scared me so I went to see a
local doctor. After telling him about my siezure problems he performed some test and and put me on
300mg Neurontin. I was very well satisfied with this medicine for the first 2 weeks of taking it. No
side effects and no siezures. But, last week I felt bad that afternoon and went to bed very early. I
woke up the next morning and my bed was covered with my blood. I had chewed a hole in my
tongue. I could barely move for my aching muscles, but I made my way to the bathroom. I looked in
the mirror and my face and chest were just covered with little reddish purple spots. I dressed and
went to the doctor and he told me that the spots where i aspirated during the siezure. I actually
choked on either my blood or my tongue and couldn't breath for several minutes. Luckily I finally
coughed it up. This really scared me seeing that I live alone and have no one to aid me during a
siezure. The doctor put me back in contact with the neorologist and they upped my Neurontin to
900mg and also added 100mg dilantin and 2mg valium. Since then I have been sleeping at my
parents house just incase, but I know this is an inconvenionce for them. I wish I could find out what
is causing the problem and find a medicine that can control the problem. Does anyone know of
sometype of mouthpiece that I could wear while I sleep to keep me from biting my tongue or is there
anyone else out there who has similar problems?........BEN
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