Hi Aunt Laura-
I, too, am a newbie to this forum, and am thrilled at the many subjects available for review, study, and comment.
My wife and I just brought our son home from University Hospital where he was studied in their Neuro Medicine unit regarding the seizures he has been suffering for nearly a year. Our particular young man was diagnosed with the insidious combination of schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder a number of years ago, and we have been medicating him since as prescribed while also submitting him to the rigors of much regular psychotherapy.
The seizures commenced. We had no idea what to do, and in panic contacted our son's primary physicians to determine what we might do. Sedation was the prescribed method of treatment once his seizures commenced. We worried. We fretted. We videotaped events he endured thinking pictures would indeed be worth much more than thousands of words ineffective to adequately describe our son's events.
During an event, his eyes would roll up in his head, his arms and legs would generally become fixed permitting at best a shuffling gait if he was on his feet, his head would thrash as if on a gimbel rotating through every axis imaginable, sometimes his arms and legs would thrash, and his utterances were reduced below the range of word vocalizations to mere guttural sounds. He would cry, and as he cried, his vocalizaitons would become a keening display of anguish, for this our brilliant young man was locked in an episode beyond his control and he seemingly knew it. What to do..... what to do.
We were referred to the hospital, one of only four in country credentialled for such neuro study. Our son was wired up with myriad elecytrodes to collect telemetry on all of his brain, cardiac, and respiratory function. Video monitoring was underway. All of this came together shortly after he began seizure and he continued thereafter for hours and hours on end, seemingly not to end. At last sedation was administered, and the seizure was arrested. So much data had been collected during those VERY long hours the doctors were both amazed and satisfied they had identified his situation.
Assurances were given to us that the seizure activity suffered by our son is VERY real and a by product of the stressors he encounters as he lives this so complicated mental illness profile, and yet we were told the seizures were non-epileptic, in fact, the seizures were Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures as the doctors labelled them only a couple of days ago. His medications, both anti-psychotics and anti-depressants were not the cause. Our son was definitely not putting on. No, there is no medication to inhibit the manifestation of seizures, no preventative. Our son was assured the continuation of his psychotherapeutic sessions is paramount as a means to learn strategies to attempt control of the seizure producing stressors. Bear in mind, stressors for him may be something as seemingly simple as the fact of a piece of lint being on someone's sleeve, the position of a light switch whether on or off, the selection of a meal item on a menu. All things and any thing may be a stressor.
We have quite a road ahead of us as a close knit family working to help our son through this complicated life he has been dealt and we are especially grateful for those of the medical community and our cadre of family and friends who gather close to help our son and help us strive to be helpful to him. Also, I was very grateful to "luck" upon this website and the forum structure it represents as an aid to these issues.
May you find hope, and peace, and the means to help and be helped in your situation.
God bless you all,
Mark56
