Hello again Mel,

well first of all, stuff like this - the paranoia - mood or thought disturbances - can happen as a side effect of AEDs. I have knew a person who also had paranoia and seizures, where it seemed sometimes that the paranoia was due to emotional changes caused by the seizures themselves (as opposed to the meds). The situation was unclear however - as the person in question may indeed have had a coexisting psychiatric condition which, i am guessing, you do not.

Regardless of the reason it is happening, it needs to not happen. It isn't good for your brain to have thought disturbances (which is what paranoia is) any more than it is for it to have seizures.

Please talk to your doc, ok? You need to report what is going on to your doc. Most likely (s)he will want to switch you to a different med unfortunately. (i've been paranoid before, fwiw, and i do know how perfectly horrible that feels! )

As for the stretching out of hands. you say stretching, not reaching... am i interpreting correctly that that is a visual phenomenon, and not a thought? That sounds like it could be macropsia (where things start to look bigger, like you're zooming in). Macropsia can happen in simple partials. It is possible that something in the store is triggering seizures, but obviously the Lyrica is not enough to stop them.

In any event, please report this to your doc as well.

I am sad to hear the Lyrica is not working out so well. Being housebound is not a great quality of life and i'm hoping you can get another med solution that can help you with seizure control without messing with your mind.

Best wishes to you!

~ waves ~