I'm new here, but I've just recently happened across signs and symptoms of epilepsy and a lot of them hit home. Question first of all is it possible to have mild seizures that are confused with the anxiety they might could create to someone who doesn't know what is happening to them? I'll try to explain.

The majority of what I'm experiencing happens at night. It goes something like this:

-Wake up feeling nauseous, like I have to use the restroom, and just a general odd sense of detached or confused.
-Start to feel tingly and then just as my muscles start to tense up really hard I..
-Go into a very surreal lucid dream state, sometimes this is terrifying, other times it's blissful and happy.
-Wake up again about 50% of into sleep paralysis, but feel very tired and agitated.

Sometimes I wake up having realized that during whatever has just happened I have grabbed my own arm or head or leg or something and squeezed so hard I've bruised myself.

This happens to me a few times a week usually.

Today, I had my third non-sleeping episode right after waking up.

The first time I was getting a tattoo, and just assumed I had fainted as I do sometimes when confronted with a needle, but the tattoo artist told me that I didn't faint, I had tensed up and started shaking a little. I remember having to go to the bathroom really bad and tasting this metallic like taste in my mouth, and I got up and went to the bathroom and came back and sat down, only to realize I hadn't actually gotten up and went to the bathroom at all, I had actually started shaking and tensed up and was just staring into space.

The second time I had been feeling very detached all day and my roommate at the time was worried about me. He cooked some soup for us and as I was sitting on the couch waiting on the bowl in my lap to cool down, I felt kind of a rush of nausea that sort went from stomach straight to my head, and the next thing I know he's freaking out and I've burned my hand pretty bad. he said I just tensed up so hard that he couldn't get my hand out of the bowl, or lay me down or anything. I went off to some blissful forested place and there were all these roses everywhere during this one.

Third time was today I had just gotten up out of bed, ate, went to the restroom and sat down at the computer. Almost immediately after sitting down, I got that rush feeling again, and woke up sort of half off the chair sideways. While I was in this one I was in a very scary dark place being chased by something I didn't understand, it was terrifying.

My wife suggested it could be seizures, which for some reason I've never thought about. The aftermath is usually me feeling very tired, agitated, and a lot of anxiety, and I think anxiety has always overshadowed it. I wrote it off as fainting from panic attacks, but that doesn't really describe anything. I've sort of built up anxiety and various other problems to blame these episodes on before because seizures just never came to mind, even though they run in the family. My mother has grand mal and sometimes she just sort of checks out and starts going through the motions of driving or washing clothes or something with her hands and them comes back not realizing she ever left.

When I started looking more into epilepsy, a lot of these things are very familiar to me. What I've been blaming on sinus pressure might be more of a seizure. I'll be walking at walmart or somewhere, tends to happen when it's very bright or there's a lot of lights or something. Fluorescence is probably the worst besides a fair or something with tons of colors flashing. I get this rush in my face like something is falling inside my head (?) or something. Really hard to describe, and then I sort of blank out and feel like I'm falling. I grab onto my wife or the cart and then I have to leave, because I start feeling very tired, sick, and anxious. I've blamed that on sinuses triggering anxiety, but could it be a form of seizure. I also smell sulfur or something of the like sometimes, my jaw kind of tenses up, I get a quick flash, and then it's over. That's probably the most frequent.

I've always written all this off as various other things, but do these sound like some form of seizure? I've been to many doctors and been treated for depression when I tell them about anxiety, but those treatments don't ever really prevent the symptoms I'm getting at all. I've never really thought about the underlying cause being seizure activity and the subsequent anxiety overshadowing that. I've created a lot of anxiety over the places these have happened, and will have real panic attacks in those places, and the panic attacks are starkly different than the episodes I described.

I should have also mentioned the three big non-sleeping ones happened over a ten year span. The smaller episodes like with my jaw and the smells and flashing and the night time episodes are by far more common.

Hello and welcome, happy to see you have come to be with us, it a great place to be. As you can see we have a great number and caring fellow members here, where you have find a supportive and relaxing place. Have fun looking into the different forums. Our shoulders are here for support in many ways.

My advice to you is to start seeing an Epileptologist at an Epilepsy center you can find these Drs. at large hospitals or university hospitals these Drs. specialize in epilepsy. Start keeping track of each time a possible sz. happens write down what time it happens on a calendar along with a description of the sz. this will help the Dr. see if you have a pattern in your sz. if they happen at certain times of the day or night and what days of the month. Try taking vitamin B12 1000 mcg. once a day. Cut back on the carbs and starch foods and stay away from anything with nutra sweet because the nutra sweet causing more electrical activity in a persons brain and can trigger sz. sometimes. Something else you should do is if you go to the theater for a movie, shut your eyes and turn your head when they have flashing light coming out.

Please keep us up to date on your condition. Again welcome, looking forward to seeing you around. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Darlene

Thank you for the welcome, and advice. I completely to forgot to say my name is Aaron. Bad manners, haha. I'll look into these doctors. I went to a neurologist when I was 16, but they never found anything and not long after the episodes stopped for a while. They just started back up again a few months ago. I'm 28 now.

Hi Aardvark12,

Darlene gave you some very good info. My advice to you is to have a sleep study done. I had one done and my Dr. found out I was having seizures in my sleep 1-2 hrs. before I would wake up.
In regards to possibly having seizures when you are near flourscent lights that is known as being photosensitive meaning certain colors can trigger a seizure for you. I had a special e.e.g. done a few yrs. ago and my Dr. had techs flash different color strobe lights one at a time and that's when they found out bright white, fluorescent green and amber were the 3 colors that triggered sz. for me.
Try taking vitamin B12 1000 mcg. once a day and cut back on the carbs and starch foods also stay away from anything with nutra sweet in it. The B12 helps calm a persons nerves down and it has reduced my sz. greatly, Also cutting back on carbs and starch foods will help. Nutra sweet will cause more electrical activity in a persons brain and trigger more sz. I wish you the best of luck and May God Bless You!

Sue