EPILEPSY PANIC ATTACK or SOMETHING ELSE????plzz help

[jonjon234]

Hi
AGE-20
Height-6ft
Weight-11St
Sex-Male
Blood pressure 129 66    Heart rate 79

Please could someone give me some advice about the way I have been feeling, Thanks.
Six months ago after a night out I was walking through the town center and suddenly out of nowhere I got a strange feeling of been lightheaded and disconnected from my environment and felt like i was going to faint, but obviously i put it down to the hangover and after a while the feelings went away and i didn't feel it again.

Until several weeks later I felt it again once again it was after a night out so again I blamed it on this, a week or so later i got the feeling again but this time i hadn't drank any alcohol for a week, i was concerned but i let it pass.

Months past and i gradually started to feel worse and it became more frequent.

Symptoms
.Starts suddenly,end suddenly

.Lasts around 15-30mins, once finished i feel really tired and then 15 mins later i will feel fine again

.Made worse by    alcohol, lack of good sleep, and especially heat

.Feel spaced/zoned out , i feeling like im not really their, like things are happening around me and find it hard to focus, in a world of my own but aware the feeling is not nice, for example i went for a meal with my girlfriend and whilst walking home i suddenly felt sick (no alcohol) so we went into a bar so i could sit down and get a drink of coke, when sat down i spaced out she was talking to me and i was staring vacantly across the room, saying yes every now and again as i could hear her speaking but not take in what she was saying

.Feel faint/lightheaded

. Sometimes like im going to be sick

.Can sometimes be worse after eating  

.last week week my scalp felt numb and tingled

.Feel mentally slow, find it hard to do something simple like read or do simple math, or write something like this.hard to concentrate.

.Feel better when sat down
  
.Feel like this most days (once a day)
.Auto pilot- on one occasion i was shopping for my girlfriends birthday present and the feeling came on and afterwards , i was walking around the town center aimlessly and but i was aware of this feeling in my mind.

.Recently i have felt alot more thirsty and have the increased need to urinate, like if i have even a mouth full of liquid i will need to urinate 15- 30 mins later

.Asked my parents if i had any problems as a child they said i had nothing wrong with me apart from between the age of 3-5 i frequently had night terrors, and when aged 15 went through a stage of sleep walking.

.Sometimes it feels like it builds throughout the day and the more stressed or agitated i get or the hotter i get the more likely i am to feel this.

.It can happen any where, its happened whilst on a train, shopping, restaurant, or just laid in bed, or watching TV

.On four occasions of the past two years i have had a feeling of racing thoughts like my mind was going 100mph which then slowly calms down, this has only happened after lack of good sleep and when feeling stressed out, although one of my earliest memories as a child at the age of 4/5 feeling it been really scared but find it difficult to explain to my parents.
I've been to the doctors 4/5 times, who at first said he thought it would be a virus which would go of its own accord, took some blood tests which where all fine, ive been back and yesterday and he has referred me to a specialist to test me for seizures i assume partial seizures.

I've never had any problems in my life and live a happy normal life, never felt depressed have a girlfriend and have just got in to university so i have plenty to be happy about and had nothing like this before.

Its really getting me down, and i want to atleast find out whats wrong with me as its hard in the unknown. I know i have written alot but this way i feel i can get it all down, as its hard to say all of this to your doctor in one go.

Its hard to explain to people and they don't always sympathie as its not something physical people can see, and i just wondered if any one has felt the same or knows someone who has.
I'm aware it could be a seizure but im also aware it could be something like a panic attack either way it could be something else.

All these symtoms may not be related as well

Please write back : )))))
thankyou

[jenfthewren]

i did a eeg and i get this since i was 9 years. every month at a time i get it
i get faint
dizzy
passout last 15 secs or 30 secs
tingling buzzing
heart races sweats
breathing is hyper and its like electricity

i did bloodwork
im good so what is it?
my nurology wont order a catscan i think its a back problem or somthing to do with nerves being pintched.

[JK1326]

When I was in high school about 10 years ago I had no health problems at all.  i had a 13 year perfect attendance record, I was a star athlete so I never thought anything could go wrong.  Boy, was I wrong.

What you are going through right now is exactly what I went through when I started going to college.  My girlfriend and I were so happy together in college living in the city working on our degrees, but then all of a sudden things started going down hill.  I would start getting these wierd uncontrollable anxiety feelings where I would have all of this energy running through me that would put me into this zone that wouldn't allow me to focus on anything.  Right away I thought I was having panic attacks because of the stress from college.  So, I went to see a psychiatrist, very very very BAD idea! Especially in your case.

The psychiatrist told me it was depression and prescribed me anti-depressants, but I told her that I wasn't depressed and I was havin gthe greatest time in college.  But, she told me that it was standard procedure for severe stress.  Well, I listened and took them and she was wrong and the episodes increase to 4 a day instead of once in a while.

Later, I saw a Neurologist to get it all straightened out and found that I had Complex Partial Epilepsy.  From what I have read in your case it seems like this might be your case too because when I was younger I was the same way and the doctors took blood tests but never found anything.  Well, with epilepsy blood tests won't find anything.

I have been through a lot of testing and procedures trying to control my case and also have done a lot of research on complex partial.  

Here is what triggers it:
1.  Lack of sleep  (Get at least 8 hours)
2.  Stress   (Now that you are in University things may get harder)
3.  Physical Stress (This I have just learned for myself because I used to be a good athlete and then let my body slip away.  So, when I began exercising again the stress it put on my body again caused me to have siezures more frequently, but as my body got back into shape the stress on the body started to reduce.  Heat is also considered in this. b
4.  Drinking  (Because dehydration causes severe stress on the body and I have been in situations where I have been at concert in hot weather and had a siezure because I had been drinking a lot of alcohol and dehydration set in)

What helps reduce it:
1.  Get necessary amount of sleep
2.  Exercise (This will reduce stress levels greatly and will help with getting good sleep)
3.  Marijuana  (If you are not the type to exercise or do not have the time this is recommended by all neurologists and all people who have epilepsy to use, to istantly reduce stress and help with sleep if you are an insomniac like me)
4.  Medication (There are plenty of meds out there just talk to a neurologist, I have been unfortunate and have tried 7 and none have been able to help except for the marijuana, but here in the U.S. it is not legal for medicinal use)

[inuit]

Hi Jon,

I'm in the process of being assessed for Epilepsy (Temporal Lobe) - I'm waiting for an EEG and an MRI

some of what you describe sound similar to my own experiences (strangely I also have an excessive need to urinate).

the zoning out - feeling disconected - unreality - half aware - sounds familiar but I wonder if you have also had the following but maybe don't know how to describe:

These can sometimes happen at the very begining of an episode (well for me anyway):

- a deja vu feeling (I recognise this very moment but I don't know why)?
- a jamai vu (the oposite of deja vu)?
- a taste in your mouth (chemical/metalic)?
- sometimes a smell that isn't there (I sometimes smell urine and or burning or methane gas)
- tingly electrical buzzy feeling all over
- i feeling of either impeding doom or the opposite - an almost religious expectation of some amazing revelation (make sense at the time, but you can't grasp what the hell it is/was afterwards.

I don't get every one of these each time - but I do always get the jamia vu - followed by the deja vu - e.g. I get a sudden feeling that my (room/wife...) is unkown to me (jamia vu) the I feel that I have had the exact same feeling of the exact moment (everything about the moment - every detail) many many times before - almost like the moment itself makes more sense that reality.

Sometimes with the above I get a funny (intense butterfly) feeling in the stomache and sometimes can smell urine/amonia/methane. and quite oftern I get an electrical buzz all over.

I have lost conciousness with these more than once - usually just after the 'religious feeling' bit. the last time I ended up in hospital with multiple facial fractures.

hope some of this is uselfull. If yours is not quite like this it does not mean that it's not epilepsy as there are lots of different kinds of epilepsy.

I'd also get your heart and blood sugar checked out (diabetes can cause similar episodes)


take care


inuit