scared

[lorianng72]

Does anyone else ever feel scared after a seizure? After my last seizure my heart rate went so high they had to give me an anti anxiety med too. I also feel strange for a few days after kind of like everything is new. Its hard to explain. Does anyone else experience these weird feelings?

[epileric]

Hi lorianng72 and welcome to CWE.

I gave you your own thread so that everyone could focus on your question as well as welcome you here.

What kind of seizures do you have? Mine are partials & I occasionally do get all sorts of emotions from them. Personally my emotions tend to be more depression, anxiety & sometimes euphoria. I personally haven't felt scared from one but I've had them all my life.

As for your heart rate increasing, it's common during a seizure to have increased heart rate & to hyperventilate.

[Nakamova]

Hi lorianng, welcome!

I know what you mean about "everything feeling new". In computer terms, it's as if you've rebooted the system and reset the defaults in some of the software your brain is running.

It's not unusual to feel strong emotions post-seizure. Your seizures may be originating in areas of the brain that are related to emotions and sensations of anxiety. Or it could just be that a seizure is often a disturbing experience to process. Your body knows that something big has happened, but your memory can't find the details.

[lorianng72]

my thoughts exactly...in computer terms it is as if the system has been re booted. having seizures does scare me though. i always come out of them crying hysterically. i always feel like im going to die, maybe its just the anxiety of it all. i dont know anyone with epilepsy around me so it seems no one understands when i explain. i am grateful for these types of sites where people actually understand what im going through. its very hard on me and im glad to know im not alone

[crazybarbie]

I dunno about being scared but I have come out of seizure being totally and utterly upset and crying hysterically.

[Endless]

Hello, lorianng,

Welcome to CWE. This is a great place. The people in here are really nice, and they are the ones that got me through my first few months after my diagnosis.

I have a type of partial seizures that are fear seizures. It is shear, complete terror. Then afterwards even though the fear switches off like a switch, I feel scared of whatever I was thinking of at the time of the seizure. Even though the fear seizures have mostly stopped now, I am still terrified when I wake up at night. I've been conditioned over all those years of being wakened by seizures.

After a seizure I also feel like I'm thinking slow, and I feel really unsure of myself. I also get Jamais Vu seizures - seizures where you don't recognize your either your surroundings, faces, tasks, objects, your dog, etc. That goes away, too, but I sometimes again feel pretty uncertain of life in general after that and really dopey.

Do you think you may be having some simple partial temporal lobe seizures?

Your heart rate going up might have been an autonomic system seizure. This is from epilepsy.com:

Autonomic: Pertaining to the autonomic nervous system, which controls bodily functions that are not under conscious control (e.g., heartbeat, breathing, sweating); some partial seizures may cause only autonomic symptoms; changes in autonomic functions are common during many seizures.

Really keep an eye on your seizures, okay? The autonomic ones especially. If they go on for more than 5 minutes you need help at the ER right away.

[lorianng72]

As far as I know I have only had grand mal seizures but everytime I come out of it I am terrified. I am screaming crying. I had one last week,luckily I was at the hospital allready. I had been having jerking movements or myoclonic seizures all day so my husband took me immediately. I just remember the doctor drilling me one minute and the next I am waking up with 3 iv's and a shot of ativan for my heart rate. Of course I was hyperventilating and crying. I think its the thought that I could die that scares me the most. Being here one minute and not the next. Not having control over my own body is very depressing and scares me.

[RobinN]

I was told by a neurologist at UCLA that crying was connected to Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. I challenge other things that they told me, so I can't be sure that this was fact. Something to look into though.

[lorianng72]

I am open to any help I can get. I've been living with this for over 20 years and have just about as much understanding today as I did when I was first diagnosed. Very little. I appreciate any and all feedback. How old is your daughter if I may ask?

[RobinN]

She was 14 when she first began having seizures, and is now 18.

She has been diagnoses with hypoglycemia, and I now have connected that much of what we have dealt with over time was low blood sugar (which has dipped so low as to throw her into a Tonic Clonic seizure). She had other types of seizures when she was on meds, but we have never seen them again after moving toward a nutritional therapy.

I have learned that hypoglycemia effects the area of the brain that deals with memory. My daughter had some terrible amnesia episodes, which now I know was connected. Keeping her blood sugar steady has proven to be the best to keep her seizure threshold high

It is my opinion that nutrition and supplementation can be helpful to SOME forms of epilepsy, as well as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. I am sure that neurofeedback is also helpful for both. But it is also my opinion that you can work with nutritional changes without neurofeedback, but it isn't advised to do neurofeedback without making nutritional changes.