diagnoses of seizures

[Lilybelle103]

Hi,
I have a question about the reading of EEG's...  My current neurologist gave me a diagnoses of seizures after a two hour long sleep-deprived EEG in which he said quote-"I had 80 bursts of seizure activity in a two hour period".  I have since had another EEG in which I seized on the table after hyperventilating and being exposed to a strobe light with eyes closed. This EEG lasted 20 minutes. Now the neurologist is saying that the seizures are not real seizures and has withdrawn his first diagnoses that he was so sure were seizures before... My question is... Are EEG's that difficult to read and is there grey areas or is it where you either have seizures or you do not?  I would think that there should be no second guessing once it is read and you either have seizures going on or you don't.. ..  Why is my doctor changing his mind all of the sudden?  He is now telling me to consult my psychiatrist as they are some kind of psychosomatic thing going on???  One more thing I did not mention is that I had profuse seizures after he put me on Tegretol combined with the drug my psychiatrist put me on-Geodon....  Apparently the two do not mix well and I found out that Geodon has a tendency to cause seizures in and of itself.  Is the doctor just trying to cover his tracks about mis-prescribing the meds by telling me the seizures were not real??? I have not had the sheer numbers of seizures since I have been back on my old meds.  Now that should tell us something-that if they weren't real then why did they go away when meds were changed?  Confused....

[amber30]

i have epilepsy.  non-convulsive and convulsive.  i was diagnosed with epilepsy when i was 11.  the doctor told me that mine were caused by one side of my brain not functioning as well as the other.  then i went to another doctor when i was 12 and he told me i was diabetic not epileptic.  well come to find out the doctor that said i was diabetic was a phony.  he's in prison now for a number of reasons but two reasons being mis-diagnosing patients and mis-prescribing medications.  i'm not diabetic, i'm epileptic.  back in about 1997, my doctor told me that my triggers were stress and lack of sleep.  then a couple of years later, my doctor told me that another trigger was flashing lights (strobe lights, watching tv or on the computer in the dark).  i've never had one while having an eeg done but it does cross my mind every time i have one done.  i'm on tegretol and lamictal (both epileptic medications); i've been on tegretol since i was first diagnosed except the time i went to the phony doctor.  the doctor that put you back on your old medicine, is that the same doctor (neurologist or psychiatrist) that combined the tegretol and geodon?  if i was in your shoes, i would probably find another doctor (which ever one that combined the two medications).

[Lilybelle103]

The neurologist prescribed Tegretol and when he did so, asked if I had changed meds and I said that I was now on Geodon instead of my old meds(Abilify and Seroquel).  He asked "What is Geodon?" and I said it is an atypical antipsychotic drug and he said "it should be fine with Tegretol because they are both used in psychiatry" .  So this right here shows that he did not even look up the two drugs to see if they were compatible-I had to find out the hard way!

[Lilybelle103]

By the way, I put myself back on the old meds and quit the Tegretol and Geodon myself because I put two and two together and realized that that was what was causing the constant seizures.  Since I went back on the old meds I have had just one "seizure" this week.  Before I was having staring episodes nonstop combined with other kinds of seizures everything from the shakes to what I think are called tonic-clonic and grand-mal?  I am not quite sure but I know that I was shaking all over and contorting in wierd moves and severely tensing my muscles in my back and neck.  After it was all over my whole body felt sore and it even hurt to urinate. I felt sick to my stomach for several hours before I had a seizure one night. For the life of me, I can't imagine this all to be psychosomatic, it was just too real and when I quit those drugs it was like I was normal again.  It took about 3 or 4 days for the drugs to leave my body so that I felt better.  

[Lilybelle103]

Just a quick note: I read on my prescription info sheets that if you are taking Tegretol to consult your doctor when taking Ziprasidone or "Geodon" but that it does not necessarily cause an adverse reaction. I am clarifying this because the reaction I had may or may not happen with ALL people or it could be that the Geodon alone was causing the seizures itself....  Either way, the doctor should have checked these before sending me on my way...