Hello, I am new to this site. I hope that you all can help my DH and I understand exactly what is going on, and maybe give us some advice as to what tests we should be doing at this point.

Monday morning our girls woke us up about 5:00 for bathroom breaks, and DH said his chest felt funny, like a pulled muscle. I put the girls back in bed, but he couldn't go back to sleep so he walked around the living room for a while, and kept feeling worse so he laid down w/ his legs propped up on the couch. He hollered for me to come in, and when I did he starting have a siezure. It scared me to death. I have never seen a seizure IRL before, and well, it was just so scarry. The girls had gotten up out of bed and were in the hallway watching. As soon as he stopped seizing I called his parents (we all live on a big farm, so they are just over the hill) while trying to talk to him to make sure he was okay. They said they were coming right over, but before they got there DH had 2 more seizures, and the third one was the worst. We live in the coutry and the nearest ambulance would have taken over 30 minutes to get here. When he was finally okay, FIL got there, and we decided to get ready to go to the ER. FIL and MIL kept the kids while I drove DH to the ER about an hour away. He was still feeling funny, but no more seizures. His chest still felt funny, though.

At the ER they took him right in and treated him as a heart attack victim, even though we knew it wasn't a HA, they said it was procedure, and they kept giving him meds including Nitro. which made his BP plummet to like 90 over something. HE felt another seizure coming and hollered for me to get a nurse, which I did, and he had another one. They said it lasted about a minute and a half. After the seizure they placed him under the care of a neurologist, and told us we'd have to stay the night, and they started scheduling lots of tests. The neurologist is not sure if it's heart related or just centered in teh brain, so she is consulting w/ a few cardiologists as well. He had EKG, EEG, Echocardiogram? (the US of the heart), CT scan, chest x-rays, and I don't know what all, a bunch of blood work, and Tuesday he had a stress test. He had to stay MOnday night, and we weren't released until 7:30 Tuesday night (were in the ER by 6:30 Mon. morning, so it was a long time). His heart does look good, but he does have irregular HB, leaky valve, and possibly only 2 flappers instead of 3 in the valve (FIL has this, and since DH has the leakage and only 2 flaps were scene in the Echo we are assuming DH may only have 2 as well). However, my FIL has never had a seizure, and all of that heart stuff can be prefectly okay and shoudln't be enough to cause seizures. That was about the extent of hte testing abilities at our local hospital so we are going 3 hours away to see antoher heart Dr in March who specializes in the "electric currents of the heart" whatever that means. We are looking for another neurologist as the one we went to is the only one around, so we will have to go 3 hours away to see someone else, and we aren't sure if we need to do that or not. WEdnesday he had a 24 hour halter monitor put on, and Thursday he had another EEG. I think for now we are done w/ tests for a while, but we still know just about nothing concerning what is going on.

DH has had these in the past, his last one was 8 years ago. He has gone to Drs. twice and both times he was found to be healthy. THe first one he had was when he was bout 15-16, and he has only had about 6 episodes. He is 31 and is in good health other-wise. He works outside doing physical labor, lifts weights and eats healthy. I guess none of that really matters though.

Does anyone else have any familiarity w/ these same symptoms? DH says it doesn't feel like a heart attack, more like a sore muscle, and he gets surges of pressure before a seizure, and it was like this durring all of his past seizures. He still feels the pulled soreness in his chest. If anyone has any articles to link to about this, we would really love to read them or hear from someone who has the same type symptoms regarding the chest pains followed by seizure. What tests should we do to rule out if the heart is involved? How long does it normally take to get a proper diagnosis?

THanks for any answers!

You don't have to reply if I'm being too forward, but I'd like to ask a few questions.

Can you describe the seizure as best as you can? For example, was he convulsing? Were his eyes open, closed or rolled back? How were his limbs positioned (did his hands, feet, arms, etc. clinch up), did he lose control of his bladder or bowels? Was he responsive after his seizures (confused, have memory issues, etc.)?

Also, has he ever had a head injury, has he ever had any infections that may affect the brain (Meningitis, High Fever, etc.).

I'll respond more once I hear back on that..

For now, ask them to do a tilt-table EEG/EKG which is basically a brain/heart test which could rule out Dysautonomic Syncope and things of the like.

How long did they do his EEG test for?

Does he ever have headaches, dizzy spells or anything like that? Can you ask him how he felt before the seizure? Did he have any strange feelings, nausea, etc?

Sorry for so many questions!

Welcome to the site, we will all do our best to help you out here.

I'll try to answer your questions as best I can

Durring his seizures his neck would arch and his eyes rolled back in his head and he convulsed. I do not remember how his hands or legs were positioned b/c I was so focused on his face. I do know that his body did jerk forward on the floor somehow. He made a gurgling noise like he was having breathing trouble, and did drool out a bit. He is about 200lbs, and I could not move him at all (tried to push him on his side to let the drool out ). He did loose control of his bowel After he is back, he is kind of dazed for a few minutes, he is clammy and cold to touch and his body looks very pale. As far as I know he has never had any injuries or high fevers like menengitis, ect. to cause seizures. He has only had a total of 7 now, in 15-16 years. The last one was 8 years ago. He does have warning signs basically it's just his chest, it feels tight, like a surging feeling, and he gets neausea, ect He just says it's a wierd feeling and hard to explain, he just knows he's going to pass out so he lays down. He has got this w/ all of the past episodes and has a few minutes to get prepared.

Hope this helped!

It helped lots, normally when he has the same symptoms prior to an episode it's his form of an 'aura' (which is why I asked to see if they were typically the same). Also, going off of the information I've gathered from my Epileptologist and Cardiologist (I also have heart problems), it's not very common to lose control of your bladder and/or bowels during an episode triggered by a heart abnormality. Typically most heart problems tend to cause fainting episodes which differ from a seizure.

There's an exception being if the heart complication causes a lack of oxygen or if it causes a drastic change in blood pressure, body temp., etc. which can trigger a seizure.

They had to explain the differences to me since my syncope can cause fainting, so I had to go through testing to confirm my seizures were caused from my brain and it wasn't something else causing my brain to go haywire and trigger seizures (sounds fun, huh?).

Have they tested his blood sugar, and did they at the hospital? I'd really look into checking that out right away to make sure it's not hypo/hyperglycemia, diabetes, etc. which could result in a very similar episode in some cases.

Sadly with seizures, there are a lot of culprits out there. Getting the easy tests out of the way would be key and then move in to the more high-tech stuff if nothing pans out.

Full blood/urine work-up (From Immunologist)
Test blood sugar
Tilt-table EEG/EKG (Try to get one done with a Cardiologist and Neurologist present)
1HR EEG (With light test, hyperventilation - I'd say to fast and be sleep deprived, too)
24HR EKG (Holter Monitor)

Those are the easiest, after that you have CT Scans, MRI/MRA w/ and w/o contrast. PETs and all sorts of stuff.

Hope that helps some

High blood pressure, arrhythmia, heart attacks can all be triggered by having too much sodium in the body. My father recently had some problems with this (luckily it didn't end up serious). Electrolyte (sodium, potassium, magnesium) imbalances can also be seizure triggers.

It could be something as simple as drinking more water or adding a supplement to the diet, but I'd recommend DH get some blood tests semi frequently to have the electrolytes measured.

Hi,
Welcome to the forum. Heart problems can sometimes lead to having seizures. Do to lack of blood flow and sometimes oxygen. You mentioned that your DH had seizures a few yrs. ago and I ask myself if some of it could be hormone related as well. Often hormones changing in the body can cause seizures for a person. I've seen many neurologist in the 34 yrs. I've had seizures but I found the best luck seeing an Epileptologist (a Dr. who specializes in epilepsy.)
Tell your DH to stay away from nutra sweet because it's been proven that the aspartame in the nutra sweet can cause seizures for many people. I found that out the hard way when I started to drink diet soda. Also get a calendar and write down the time the seizures happened along with a discription of the seizure. You might want to write down what the weather was like also because often people with epilepsy can have seizures when a low pressure is near.
Here's a couple of websites to check out if you're interested.
www.epilepsy.com

http://www.neuropat.dote.hu/neurology.htm
when the main page comes up click on epilepsy, or you can do a search. Here's wishing you and your DH the best of luck and May God Bless You!

Sue

Hello, my son has just turned 16. Neither my husband or myself have any family history of seizures. My son has never sustained a head injury. He is athletic at 6'6". He plays basketball, golf and runs cross country. In October 2006, was the onset of this nightmare we have been dealing with. He was taken to the ER from school -- diagnosed with what doctor's felt was syncope. In December 2006, after overcoming a flu bug, he had just got home from eating lunch and was outside with my husband when he collapsed to the ground into a seizure. His body went rigid, his eyes rolled back, his face literally looked blue, drool came out of his mouth as his body convulsed. Afterwards, he was profusely sweaty, disoriented, his speech slurred. He was like in a dazed state. He then fell asleep. Afterwards, he was fine.

March 14, 2007 we had just come from dinner and he was outside again playing ball, as we got ready to leave for church, he grabs his forehead because his vision becomes blurred and went through the seizure again as before! Then on March 24, 2007 he had another seizure.

Each time, his body reacts the same way. He becomes like dead weight [if that makes sense]. It scares me to death.

He has went through EKG, EEG, sleep deprived EEG, 24 hour holter, 30 day heart monitor, he is scheduled for tilt table test tomorrow [4/3/07] and then is being ref to Brenner's Hospital to see a neuro specialist. He has been treating with family doctor and a cardiologist. His blood pressure at the hospital after the first and second episodes was low.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? This has been a nightmare for us trying to understand what's going on? What's causing this? At this point, we're accumluating more and more doctor's bills after health insurance pays and we still don't know if the seizures are coming from his heart or his brain!

Any insight into this would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Concerned Mom

YES - it's all too familiar with me, having neurological issues (along with epilepsy) and having cardiac problems. The hardest part is ~ all of this takes
time to sort out, but eventually, it will all come together.

While I've had seizure-free breakthroughs from 2 years to nearly 5 years but because of HMO plans that the company kept changing, and those stupid "pre-existing clauses" (back then) that knocked me out of those periods. I can
understand and relate the panic, frustration, and makes you want to pull all your hair out.

Whatever you do - stay in tune with the Cardiologist and Neurologist when you find one (if not already) and make sure they're in tune with each other as well.

I had my first myocardial infarction (heart attack) when I was 20, and had 2 more later on in life, but no one knows why (didn't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs, etc). But I've had tons of seizures all in my life of all sorts, whether on meds or off meds. I've been in the hospital out of the hospital - sometimes for a few days and sometimes for as long as several weeks. I've been in the ER way too many times. It's been a massive PITA.

Currently I have a wonderful Trio of Doctors, a Primary, Cardio & Neuro - all working together, and everything for once is going smoothly in spite that I still have those stupid cardiac junk showing up now and then, but they've always been with me, just like the neurological problems.

I am now almost 45 years of age. So don't give up, Hang in there, and I know it's hard - but be PATIENT! I've had my times where I was ready to throw in the towel many times, and when I was really young, I wanted to just "end it all" with one bullet in the right place, because it was just too much, but GOD kept me going - as I was so literally tired of all of this, having grown up with Doctors, Hospitals, Office Visits, Therapies, throughout my life .... it seemed like there was "NO END IN SIGHT".

my two year old son also has seizures he has three brothers that has never had seizures my nor his father has any history of this problem. I have taken him to several doctors and none of them can give me an answer. first i was told that it was temperal seizures but he would not have a fever until after then they told me that he was epileptic. He had several eeg test and they all come out normal. so we had him tested for diabities. His test also come out normal. I dont know what to do i do know that it aint normal. I guess the next step is to check his heart. I just want you to know that you are not alone I am going through the same thing.

thank you cwhite