My girlfriend is 7 months pregnant and has
recently been suffering from seizure-like
symptoms. Sometimes she goes into
catatonic states, othertimes it seems more
narcoleptic. There are occasional warning
signs for these events which are
dizziness, confusion, hot flashes, and
parasthesias. The episodes last from 5 to
10 minutes. During this time she is
unresponsive; she has had nystagmus, a
ping-pong effect of the eyes, and pupils
dialating and contracting without
stimulus; and has had intermittent ticks.
Symptoms following these incidents are
confusion, short-term memory loss,
migranes/shooting pain behind the left
eye, drowsiness/fatigue, and temporary
palsy in bilateral arms.
She was admitted at the hospital for a
few days for testing and observation.
They gave her a mri, mrv, head ct scan,
ekg, cbc, chemistry panel, and a sed rate.
The results were all within the norm.
She also had a few eeg's with at least 20
marked events that showed no abnormal
brain activity. Electronic fetal
monitering had good results and showed no
reaction to the episodes. The last test
they did was a lumbar puncture. Inital
results were negative, but cultures are
pending. While these tests were going on,
they tried giving her trileptal,
phosphenytoin, and ativan. The meds had
no effect. From these findings, doctors
have diagnosed that these are
non-epileptic events.
I am not ruling out this conclusion, but
my concern is that there could be
something that they may be missing. My
house is around 100 years old and I have
been doing some remodeling. I tore down a
ceiling a couple of months ago, exposing
some mouse feces. More recently, I tore
out a rotting bathroom floor to discover
large amounts of mold beneath. Since
then, a few people that were exposed to
the mold spores have noticed some flu like
symptoms. I'm hoping that if these
elements are causing an infection that
they'll show up in the cultures from the
lumbar puncture. I also plan on sending
in a sample of the mold in for testing.
My girlfriend's mental history is
healthy. She has had no history of
depression or anxiety. She is very
mentally stable and seems to cope with
things well. Her father suffered from
severe depression and ultimately committed
suicide 10 years ago. She was in a
marriage for 4 1/2 years where she
suffered physical and mental abuse.
During this time, she never reported the
abuse to anyone. She got divorced 6 1/2
months ago and has since moved on with her
life. She has had some stresses with
school, work, and chores around the house,
but seemed to handle it well.
We plan to pursue psychotherapy, but in
the mean time I would like to explore
other options. I'm just wondering if
anyone's heard of anything like this
before. Any responses would be greatly
appreciated.
|
ophantom
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 1 Location: england
Posted: 04-25-07 16:08pm
hello,i have been suffering from NEAD (non
epileptic attack disorder) for about 2
years, i only found out what was wrong
with me in may last year. i started off
with panic attacks then seizures, i
sometimes get warnings but not many. I
seem to have alot during night time i have
to have lights on to watch tv, but as i
was saying i start by my eyes rolling
back, my body goes limp an then i
sometimes shake violently, i am alert of
whats happening as i can hear everything.
this is a very hard disorder to understand
and come to terms with. i would like to
talk more if you would like a little help.
|
specialmomx2
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 22 May 2007 Posts: 29
Posted: 05-27-07 09:31am
I have been suffering from non-epileptic
seizures for many months. In my case they
were caused by severe reactive
hypoglycemia (low blood sugar in response
to eating a meal).
As your girlfriend is pg, they should have
given her a glucose tolerance tests to
rule out gestational diabetes. How did she
do in this test?
Try to figure out any patterns to the
events: Do they happen during the night?
Ater meals? after certain activities?
Identifying the triggers will help to find
a solution.