[thank you Sue, thats very kind of you to send me such a thoughtful reply. I'm going to see my neurologist this afternoon, so i will bear those things in mind - especially about the hormones. Its helpful to hear your description of absence seizures. I have a different experience to that - i feel like to go blank and my eyes get fixed and i have to consciously and very deliberately swipe hand in front of face or shake my head to quite literally 'snap out of it' i tend to feel like it mostly when sitting still for a long time. i don't get a headache but a kind of muggy head where i can't seem to shake it or wake up properly to attend to a meeting or something for an hour or so. i don't know if perhaps its just because i don't like meetings!
my jerks do sound very similiar to how you describe the telephone jerks.
thank you