black out

To start off this is not alcohol related. and we do not do drugs at all.
This has happened several times that I know of. My wife when she is under alot of stress blacks out the longest was a 2hr time and she remembers nothing. She gets very violent and wants to hurt her self. Over a period of time she will calm down and be her self but she remembers nothing. This has happened once when she was pregnant once when I had to leave to go to work out of town and once when we leave her Dads while on vacation. Her Mom killed herself when she was about 13 She does want help and she is a rational person normally. But when this happens there is no telling what can happen. I am afraid to confront her on most things because she gets so up set I am afraid she will trigger another black out. Please help us we live in Utah if you can recomend us to someone.
Thanks,
Ohfactor

[jcmk1281]

I would go to the University Medical Center, their number for physician referral is 1-866-850-8863. She needs to be seen by a cardiologist, to rule out heart abnormalities, neuropsychologist to see if there is something evident on the tests that are done that are contributing to this problem, and a neurologist since there have been multiple episodes of extended period of time.

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

In addition to the valuable information provided by 'jcmk1281', I would like to add a few things.

From the description, it appears she has episodic behavioral changes. I am not quite sure if you mean a 'lost state' when you mention black out, but this may hint towards some sort of a temporal lobe seizure. Temporal lobe seizures are known to manifest in various ways. One of them is behavioral changes with aggressive tendencies.

I would suggest an EEG (Electro-encephalogram) for her.

If the EEG comes back to be normal, we may repeat it again after a gap. The neurologist should be able to figure out if this is the case.

In the case where the seizures are ruled out, we should consider a psychological cause behind this.

Regards