Are convulsions a sign of epilepsy or caused by stress? Posted: 09-02-07 19:22pm
This is a question for my girlfriend. I
have filled out the information as though
I were her. She is a 20 year old student
under large amounts of stress. She
recently completed her MCATS (20 days ago)
which has been one significant source of
this stress. It seems that for the last
two years, while we'd either be lying down
or watching a movie, she'd start
convulsing, her eyes would close, and
thirty seconds later she'd be still, and
very tired. She consulted a doctor that
told her to reduce her coffee intake (she
was at approximatly 2 or 3 cups a day).
She has since cut down to 1 cup a day.
This evening, while were were lying down,
her body seized up, and she explained that
her entire body was in pain. She said that
she felt as though her spine should not
have been connected. She then felt very
tired. I was just hoping if you could
quickly tell me is this is just a side
effect of too much stress and coffee, or
possible something else?
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DoctorAnswer
Doctor Answer
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Anxiety and Stress Answer A3395 Posted: 12-04-07 05:44am
Convulsions are primary symptoms during
epilepsy but, technically, an EEG can be
performed to exclude or confirm epilepsy.
If there is no presence of epilepsy your
girlfriend could be experiencing some type
of anxiety disorder. Some types of
“convulsions” are not real medically
defined convulsions. Such "false
convulsions" occur during anxiety
disorders like hysteria. Pain is not
typical for epilepsy. Tiredness or fatigue
is present in some types of epilepsy after
the convulsion attack. Further, it
doesn’t seem to me that 2-3 coffees per
day can cause any convulsions. You can
both consult a neurologist to exclude or
confirm epilepsy as a possible diagnosis
for these symptoms.
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