Hello - control your auras

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Deep

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Hi there. I am new here and hav had epilepsy for the past 3 years. My seizures hav been generally controlled. I am on lamictin and epillim and recently i tried removing epillim and switching to monotherapy. That didnt work, i had my first grand mal since 18 months. I always get an aura before a seizure. I sometimes feel like i can control these auras and i am wondering whether there is some way of doing it. These auras hav an emotional link, i cant help but feel that i can somehow fix this problem myself without meds. Im just sick of taking them. I hav sometimes tried shifting my line of thought once i feel an aura developing. Am i being totally ignorant or has anyone successfully tried to control them?
 
Hi Deep, welcome to the forum. :hello:

Your intuition is correct. You sound like a perfect candidate for Neurobehavioral / Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). I'd recommend you get your hands on a copy of [ame]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=projectmana0a-20&path=tg/detail/-/0802774652/ref=ase_projectmana0a-20?v=glance&s=books[/ame] which walks you through the process.
 
Thanks

Thanks for the links Bernard! Wow, everyone i spoke to used to think that i was crazy with these theories. Everyone said that medication was the only way forward.
 
Auras Can come in many forms!!

All the different auras that I have had have changed over the years. I used to have funny tastes in my mouth that were sour. Then it went to tingling and numbness on side of my body. To stickery sensations in my fingers and cramps in my left foot! But I am starting to learn that doctors don't pay as much attention to auras like they used to.
David:twocents::clap::e::ponder:
 
auras suck

Yeah tell me about it. Auras suck. And its so hard to explain the sensation to a normal person. I sometimes feel my mouth twitching when i get really hectic auras. That is followed with a nasty headache. And if im really unlucky, 5 seconds after the aura i get a tonic chlonic attack.
 
Deep, an aura is a seizure itself. A simple partial seizure to be exact. And whenever an aura advances into a tonic clonic seizure, all of that together is medically known as a partial seizure that secondarily generalizes. For situations like this, the goal in treating all of this, with the help of medication, is not necessarily trying to avoid, prevent, or blocked a person from having a tonic clonic seizures. The goal is trying to prevent that simple partial seizure from taking place to begin with.

The point as to where a seizure starts inside a person's brain, particularly partial seizures, that point is known as the "seizure focus" or "seizure spot". And the two most common locations as to where a seizure focus or seizure spot takes place is either in the left frontal lobe, or the left temporal lobe. With the help of medical test I've gone through, along with the information I've brought to all of my doctor's attention, my seizure focus/seizure spot was located in my left temporal lobe. Whenever a simple partial seizure takes place, the seizure focus only covers a small area in the person's brain. If a simple partial seizure develops into what's known as a complex partial seizure, the seizure focus becomes a bit larger. And when a partial seizure advances into a tonic clonic seizure, the abnormal activity during the seizure is taking place throughout the entire brain. This is why the tonic clonic seizures is listed in the generalized type of seizures category.

With the information you have shared with us so far, my guess is that with the dosage amount of medication you were previously taking, along with how many times you took the medication per day, it was enough medication to stop the partial seizures from advancing into a tonic clonic seizure, but just not enough to keep the partial seizures from occuring.

With however much the dosage is you're taking of Lamictal, apparently it is enough for you not to have any severe or toxic side effects, but not enough to hold back all of your seizure activity. So, what should you do now? Well, my suggestion is for you to talk with your doctor in order to get his or her approval to have the dosage amount of Lamictal increased. Increased until you either have your seizures under complete control without any side effects; OR, until you start to experience side effects that you cannot withstand (i.e. severe or toxic side effects). When you start to experience side effects that you cannot withstand, then it's time for your doctor to switch it over to a different medication.

What doctors are supposed to be doing is placing a person on only one medication, starting with the average dosage amount that is most commonly used. Now if the person suddenly starts to experience severe or toxic side effects, this does not automatically mean that the medication is not going to work for the person who's taking it. What it means is that the dosage amount that the doctor started the person on, might be just a little bit too much that their patient's body cannot withstand. Notice when I said "starting with the average dosage amount that is most commonly used" Okay, well in order to come up with an average, for anything, you add up all of the numbers and then divide that total amount with however many numbers you added up. For example, the nation's average price of gas. Nowadays, the average price of gas is changing every day. My guess is that the average price of gas throughout the entire state of California is still roughly under, or around $5 per gallon. I live in Texas, and believe the average price of gas per gallon is roughly around $4. Now in order to find out what the average price of gas is throughout the entire United States of America, you will need to take the average price that comes up for each and all of the 50 states, add up all of those dollar amounts, and then divide the total amount by 50 (i.e. 50 states throughout the United States of America). Unless it is brought to everyone's attention through the media, the public won't know which state has the lowest price of gas per gallon, and which state has the highest price of gas per gallon. Other examples can be which state has the highest temperature and which state has the lowest temperature in the four seasons throughout the year. The point I'm trying to make here is that the average amount is in the middle of the total amount. So when a doctor starts their patient on a new medication, the starting point is going to be somewhere in the middle.

Okay, now getting back to what I was talking about earlier. If the person suddenly starts to experience severe or toxic side effects, again, this doesn't automatically mean that the medication is not going to work for the person who's taking it. There's still the possibility that the medication might work for the patient, but by starting at a dosage amount that is lower than the average starting dosage amount. That is just one factor in dealing with medication. Other factors can include the age of the person who's taking the medication; women who want to become pregnant and have children; is the person taking any other medications for other health concerns other than just epilepsy; and, how many times per day should the person take the medication in order to control their seizures without experiencing any side effects (multiple daily dosing)?

In my opinion, without however many medications there are unavailable for any particular type of seizure, I don't care for doctor comes up and tells me, "If two or three medications aren't going to work for me, then most likely, neither are any of the other medications". Well, those words of "most likely" does not mean 100%. For each and every single individual who ends up being diagnosed with having seizures and/or epilepsy, the process of treating those seizures with the help of medication will always remain a matter of trial and error. As for my situation, I have been on a variety of different anti-epileptic medications. I have also gone through the process to find out whether or not my seizures spot can be surgically removed, safely. For my situation, the results showed that it would be too risky for me to have my seizures spot removed for I may permanently lose my ability to speak. Several of my neurologist has also suggested for me to have the vagal nerve stimulator implanted into my body, and I have told every one of them "NO!" So, with all of the different anti-epileptic medications that I have previously taken, I already have an idea what the results would be if I were to take those medications again. However, I have not been tried on all of the available anti-epileptic medications that are used for the particular type of seizures I have experienced. If I ever reach a point in time where I've experimented with all of the medications that might be useful for me, in order to find what each one will do to me, I would choose the medication that gave me the best control possible, with the least amount of side effects that I was able to tolerate.

Being treated by a doctor in hopes of controlling a person's seizures is not a quick fix it and forget it procedure. Please, if you, or anyone else, have any questions and/or would like for me to explain more in detail about whatever I've said in this reply, please take the time to post however many replies you would like to, because the biggest thing helps in coping with epilepsy, is knowledge. Knowing more about epilepsy can greatly diminish the amount of fear.
 
Hi Deep

Welcome to this wonderful site, I hope you get the support and encouragement that I've had since joining earlier this year.

I like you have the auras, I had surgery in Sept 2000, and experienced more auras since my first op, although I was seizure free for five wonderful years, when the seizures started again, I was having really intense auras. I have just had my second brain surgery, and have had three Complex Partial, and lots of auras since the op on June 26, so things have greatly improved, although I was quite upset to have a Complex Partial this morning, with absolutely no warning.

I can think myself out of the auras, I find it helps to really concentrate on something like a happy memory, for me I like to focus on our first trip to Cairo in Egypt in 2001, and standing in front of the pyramids and the sphinx, sometimes, I just let the aura take me over, sometimes I don't have any choice and I can't get out of it. Wally just wrote to me, he believes in meditation helping with seizures, I bet it does help, some people like to listen to certain music, I think it depends on lots of things.

I'm on Keppra, that's supposed to help Simple Partial Seizures, but it's never really worked for me, mind you, none of the drugs I've taken have worked for me, rightly or wrongly, red wine chills me out.

It's early days yet since this second operation, so I'm going to keep smiling. Enjoy your time on this wonderful site!

Cheers

Elaine x
 
Hi Deep,

Yep - I try it too....it's kinda like sticking your fingers in your ears and going 'la-la-la-la-la' until it goes away by concentrating on something else. The only problem I get, and this is where it usually backfires, is that I can bring 'em on too.....and it's like falling off a bike and grazing your knee, you still wanna touch it to see if it still hurts - and by testing the sz, sometimes I bring it back...doh!
 
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