Epilepsy Meds (I don't have epilepsy)
 

Hello all! I've been very confused about the past 2 months of my life and my doctors aren't giving me many answers, so here I am for support and advice!

To start off, I'm 25 years old. I do not take medications. I'm a mother of 2 who is generally healthy other than a few bad habits (nicotine being the worst and am trying to quit).

I have had "episodes" where my vision fades (tunnels out or complete loss of), my hearing goes, my ears ring, my hands and feet feel cold and I just kind of "check out", although I'm aware of everything going on around me.

My first visit to the ER, they put me on a 2 week heart monitor - I was diagnosed with a Right Bundle Branch Block. Apparently that has nothing to do with my symptoms.

After more episodes at work (no, my job is not stressful, I love it!) I went to a different hospital and was given a no-driving order from an on-call doctor thinking I was having petit mal seizures.

I have done a 24 hour sleep deprived EEG as well as a brain MRI with and w/o contrast. I have also been seen by an ENT and had a full metabolic blood panel done, as well as testing all of my thyroid and parathyroid levels because I also have a 3-year old thyroid tumor that we are monitoring. All my levels have been perfectly fine.

I have requested a tilt-table test for circulatory issues, but my neurologist is refusing until I take an epilepsy medication for 3 weeks, which I am not really comfortable doing.

I'm not really sure how to handle all of this! Any insight?

Also, I am attaching a photo of my brain MRI - I requested my MRI on a CD and I found a very weird gray-matter oval on the t1 axial view. It's directly to the right of the cervical cord. I have looked at hundreds of MRI sequences and cannot find this big spot anywhere on any others.. ideas?

Episode symptoms:
Bilateral shooting pain up neck into ears
Lightheadedness
Chest pain, rapid heart rate
Shaky hands, chest tremors
Feeling like hands and feet are dipped in ice water
Heat & cold flashes and sweats
Tunnel vision / loss of vision
Pulsatile tinnitus / loss of hearing

Thanks for reading!

Hi mamafox512

Welcome to NeuroTalk :).

I know very little about epilepsy so can't say anything helpful.

I hope that other members will have more insight than me.

All the best.

Hi mamafox512. I realize your post is a couple of months old now, but if you are still around, I'd be interested to know if they confirmed epileptic activity with the EEG testing.

MRIs can detect physical problems in the brain (lesions, scarring, tumors), but don't really inform much about the activity happening in there. EEGs measure what's happening in there, but they only record what happens at the time the EEG is working, so if you don't have an episode while the EEG is running, the EEG may not capture any useful data (with respect to your episodes).

Which medication did the doctors want you to try for 3 weeks?

Hi, I'm also curious which medication the doctor is wanting you to
try for 3 weeks.

There are a couple that are used for headaches also. One is topamax.
And I take it for migraines. It has really helped me with them.

Donna :hug::grouphug: