differentiating partial seizure types?? (n00b question)

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Thanks Arnie. That makes sense.

I actually think I am in the middle of a simple partical right nw.
 
Arnie, after reading a few of your experiences with Complex Partials, I am confident to say I relate to how you experience them in much regard.

I do "lose time" in a sense, and I do not know completely or directly what I am doing or saying. But at a certain point I am aware of what I am doing (like the rummaging, or the wandering).

When you feel as though you don't recognize anything, but know it is "familiar", that sounds like a sens of [link removed]. The "opposite" of Deja Vu. If I had to guess this is part of a simple partial.

Once you get to the point you feel you don't have that control, I'd guess that is a complex partial. Others may argue with that, but I'm willing to bet when you feel like you have "less control", I would bet you have less than you think you may.

I never had any sense of what was going on during a complex partial, but I have talked to others that believe they have, so I won't argue with the possibility.

Best guess, you are first experiencing the simple, but moving onto the complex partial once you "'step back' further into yourself".

Hope this gives you some insight.

My neurologist already clarified the Jamais' Vu and told me that it is most likely a Simple Partial.

And I know the whole "stepping back further into myself" sounds amazingly silly, but that is the best way I can describe the feeling. Mainly because I have different variations of Simple Partials (or at least it seems); from simple Jamais' Vu (sudden and complete confusion which lasts 10 seconds) to complete dissociation with speech difficulties, tingling, feeling of falling, sensory and emotion changes (which lasts for 2 minutes).

But those episodes I described in the post you quoted, are on the deeper side of the spectrum. So as I experience the type of Simple Partial it's as if I go through the steps, and through a door...deeper and deeper. It's a bad metaphor I know, but it's all I have. Its going to be interesting talking to a Epileptologist :(
 
Coming up with descriptions for how we feel or what we experience can be an experience. We all have trouble doing it because words are not made to describe it.

As for your description of going "through the steps, and through a door..deeper and deeper", you may be surprised with how much many of us understand it. It doesn't sound crazy at all to me.
 
Coming up with descriptions for how we feel or what we experience can be an experience. We all have trouble doing it because words are not made to describe it.

As for your description of going "through the steps, and through a door..deeper and deeper", you may be surprised with how much many of us understand it. It doesn't sound crazy at all to me.

This is completely true!!!!

When you describe something that you feel during/after a seizure to a person who has epilepsy they can relate to it, even if it doesn't happen to them. When you tell someone without epilepsy they don't understand at all.

Sometimes during seizures I get very weird feelings or see things. I've sworn that people have been in the same room with me and I've talked to them who weren't there at all. During a recent seizure it felt like my arms and legs weren't attached to my body. I could see them and feel them but it just felt like they were floating beside me. Very weird feeling.

After a lot of my seizures recently when I start to come out of them I think I'm somewhere else with someone else instead of where I actually am and who I'm actually with. My husband was worried about this because he didn't understand. When I went to my neuro yesterday my husband asked him about it. My neuro said it was a normal thing that can happen. He said it was called 'some sort of big medical word' then explained what it meant and why it happened.
 
He said it was called 'some sort of big medical word' then explained what it meant and why it happened.
Maybe "post-ictal delirium"? That's what it sounds like.
 
Maybe "post-ictal delirium"? That's what it sounds like.

That could have been it but I really don't remember. He told me about some of the different things that were going on with me recently in medical terms then would explain to me what they meant.
 
Wonderful thread and great feedback folks. :)

When I was first going through this and knew I was experiencing something this is how I started tracking/journaling it, (because I didn't know all the terminology or understand).

I used different color highlighters in my journal. I'd write details too about what I experienced, remembered or what others told me but it seemed like I remembered the feelings or some specific actions the most.

For example:
*when I feel like a simple partial is getting worse I grab a phone to call my husband, mom or daughter. (highlight pink)

I now have cordless phones in every room, even the bathrooms.

*When I come to after a complex partial and am wondering who I am, where am I, how did I get in this room of the house. (highlight orange)

I usually only have tc's that are nocturnal since I've been on the Keppra, but I wake up knowing it or my husband or the dog lets me know. (highlight blue)

It may seem silly but highlighting with different colors took some of the confusion out and helped to realize patterns and distinctions between the different events and seizures. Plus its simple to do when I'm still foggy.
 
Thanks, Eli, that's an excellent system. I have to start a seizure diary too, so today I'm going to pick up some highlighters. Much simpler.
 
With my CPs, I am very taken up with the experience, am very spaced out, but I am not completely unaware of my surroundings and i don't think I'm completely unresponsive either though I seem very spaced out and not all there. This confused me when I read other people's CP experiences and it seemed like they are totally unresponsive. But of the five or six neuros I've seen in my life they are all in agreement that those are CPs (and they are decidedly different and far worse than my SPs). So I guess there is a range of CP experiences. I'm very disoriented for hours afterwards but I remember once having one start while I was working in a deli and serving a customer and having the presence of mind to excuse myself walk to the back room.
 
When I was first going through this and knew I was experiencing something this is how I started tracking/journaling it, (because I didn't know all the terminology or understand).

I used different color highlighters in my journal. I'd write details too about what I experienced, remembered or what others told me but it seemed like I remembered the feelings or some specific actions the most.

For example:
*when I feel like a simple partial is getting worse I grab a phone to call my husband, mom or daughter. (highlight pink).

I do something similar to this.

I have a date book that I keep track of everything in. Dr visits or other sorts of events that are going on.

If I have a seizure I write it in there and highlight it. I also write down as much as I can remember about the seizure - what I did during it, how long it lasted and what I felt like after it. I mainly do it to make sure I know how many seizures I've had and I'm able to tell my neuro about them.


I now have cordless phones in every room, even the bathrooms.

I keep a phone on me at all times, cordless and/or cell. This way I'm able to get ahold of someone when I need them. It's come in useful several times!

I keep telling my grandparents that they need to do the same thing but they don't. If they get on the ground they can't get up with out help. One time my grandma ended up on her butt in the middle of the driveway and couldn't get up. She sat there for over an hour before my dad saw her and wanted to know why she was sitting in the driveway. We live in the country so if something would happen there's no one walking down a side walk that can help you. You have to wait for the neighbor to look out the window.

She fell in the house recently (not a bad fall) but couldn't get up. She had to scoot on her butt clear to the other side of the house to get to a phone to call my dad to help her stand up again. With all the times they've fallen you'd think they'd learn to have a phone on them by now!
 
arnie, I have a lot of experiences close to you... question though: if you don't mind.....?

can you nod in reply to people's questions? every couple questions that people ask me during what seems like a complex partial; I can slightly move my head in reply to yes... but it's really really hard, and i can't do it the whole time...


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