Hallucination before seizure...

[Silat]

I had an unexpected tonic-clonic earlier, which has left me dazed, but what happened before it is what has me stumped. I have had tonic-clonics before so having one isn't really worth noting, except the hallucination I had right before it happened.

It's never happened before. This wasn't a "distortion" type effect where everything seems weird, this was a full blown hallucination that was so specific that I didn't realize until after I'd recovered from the seizure that it was a hallucination.

I was laying in bed this morning, about 8AM, and had just woken up. I was unusually tired, which isn't normal for me at all. Normally I pop right out of bed, but today I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck.

I was on my side, and rolled onto my back, then reached my right hand out to a stand by my bed to grab my phone and look at what time it was. I had my eyes mostly shut at the time. I moved my hand to the edge of my bed and started feeling around, looking for my phone, and I felt a sting in my right ring finger. I looked down, and *saw* in perfect detail, a black widow spider biting my finger.

Immediately, I couldn't move. I wanted to yell out for help, but I couldn't make a sound. I was paralyzed, I guess. Fully awake, but I couldn't move. I could only lay there and watch as this black widow spider repeatedly bit my finger, and I felt the sting of the bites, and I felt a burning sensation like venom moving up my body. I could smell coffee brewing downstairs, I could hear everything around me, and my own heart beating, but I couldn't move an inch.

About 15 seconds of laying there helpless watching myself get bitten by a highly toxic spider, and I went into a seizure. Or, at least, I assume I did by my messed up sheets and new bruises I discovered when I woke up. I guess after the seizure, I fell asleep, because when I got up today, it was exactly 2:24 PM. So... about 6 hours I was out.

I woke up mostly recovered. I was tired and sore, but otherwise okay.

Then I remembered the spider, and I looked at my hand. No bites. No marks. Nothing.

There aren't even black widows around where I live...
Black widow venom can take up to 45 minutes to disable someone... It's not instant...

Before this happened, I didn't really have an "aura" either. I felt like crap, yes, but before I felt the sting and everything, it was a normal morning for me. Normally I have very distinctive auras before a tonic-clonic, which are my simple partials I normally have as they begin to spread.

I don't think that's the case here... The memory of it is vivid, the pain felt real, the sensations are engrained in my brain even now... The fear and panic of feeling helpless... it was all so real I'm having trouble believing it wasn't. But there are no bites, or anything else, and if it had been a black widow I'd have been dead 11 hours ago...

So... what the heck happened?
Anyone have any ideas, because I'm stumped. onder:

 

[Chaz1]

Cant speak of the experience…but that was a heavy one….sorry

Could you have been dreaming Silat and you were in the waking up sleep phase but dream was so intense it brought on the seizure?

Mighty scary, thank goodness it was no black widow!!

You bring so much joy, knowledge and positivity to us all.....and I just want to say that out loud.

Hopefully the yummy coffee is still brewing... Rest well today....

 

[Silat]

I was wondering that... but it's so engrained in my memory I can't see it being a dream really...

My dreams are kinda weird from the medicine I take, which is normal. I've never had a dream, medicine or not, that came that close to being that vivid though. onder:

Who knows... I'm going to call my Neurologist when they open and tell them about it and see if they have any answers.

 

[Chaz1]

how complex the brain is eh...

be interesting to see what the docs think......

thinking of ya..

 

[JaneC]

Hi Silat, hope you are feeling a bit better now after that very scary experience. I, too, will be interested to hear what your doc thinks.

My daughter has had hallucinations as part of what I think are simple partials - a pack of dogs in the kitchen, her cousins with her on the train when they weren't - but I'm not sure quite how vivid they were.

I hope you get answers. I suppose one thing we have found is that epilepsy isn't exactly predictable. Rosie started out with straight tonic-clonics. Three and a half years later, we have simple partials and absences out of the blue.

Take care xx

 

[Nakamova]

That moment in the morning between sleeping and waking is a very susceptible one for the brain. I've had dreams where I "wake up" and am following my normal routine until something odd occurs, whereupon I realize it's a dream, and then I really wake up and go about my morning routine, except -- wait! -- something weird happens, and then I realize, that I'm STILL dreaming, and so on and so on for a few Inception-style iterations. Until I really and truly wake up.

So although the spider felt and looked entirely real to you Silat, I think that you were caught in the web of one of those half-real dreams, made particularly intense as your brain went into pre-seizure mode. Dreams featuring paralysis (as from a spider bite) are pretty common as we wake up, since parts of our brains start waking up before the rest of the body is fully responsive.

I hope you are feeling better, and less freaked out. And I hope you never have that dream again.

 

[Fedup]

Silat

I am sorry to hear about this morning you had a bad time, the only thing I can say is that since I started taking vimpat, I am having nightmares bad ones and the last one scared the sh_t out of me because I had a seizure after it and it does seem real but I am told its because of a reaction between the vimpat and epineution I am on, they are taking me off the epineution next month very slowly and things seem so real its hard to tell at times, so hang in there, there has to be a reason.

 

[AngelwithDentedHalo]

That must have been awful, bad enough about the spider. I've had very vivid dreams so vivid I swear it really happened when I woke up and I think Ive had dreams seizure related like one time I dreamt I was running from something and when I woke, my legs were tired and my heart was racing and I was sweating. Still remember it, though never knew if it was a seizure or not & it was many years ago.

 

[Silat]

Well, he said there were two possible scenarios.

First one was that I was dreaming but half awake, and the seizure hit as my body was trying to wake up. Basically, what Nakamova said.

Secondly, it could have been a real hallucination. Hallucinations and seizures occur together in one case... low levels of calcium in the body.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/394854-seizures-and-low-calcium/

Now, I'm severely lactose intolerant, so I don't eat/drink most calcium rich foods. Milk, cheese, etc are off limits to me. I keep a diet of fresh veggies and eat well, but calcium is pretty lacking in my diet and always has been...

So there exists the possibility that I'm highly defecient in calcium, so tonic-clonics and the hallucination and my mood problems (depression, periodically. It comes and goes) stem from that. So I am going in to have a blood draw to measure calcium levels and see if they're low. If that's the case, then I'll have to add calcium/vitamin D supplements to my daily routine.

Personally, I'm actually hoping for the second case. It's an easy fix and means this won't happen again...

 

[Nakamova]

I drink almond coconut milk -- a little over 2 cups gives you 100% RDA of calcium. Just snacking on almonds and many other nuts provides a fair amount too. Also good sources: broccoli! and some fish like salmon. If you do take a supplement, it's better absorbed in an acid environment -- one reason why OJ and Cranberry Juice have varieties with added calcium.

 

[MuayThaiFighter]

I don't even know what to say honestly, other then im sorry you had to go through that. That'd be terrifying. I hope the doctor or someone can shed more light on what happened.

 

[Silat]

I eat brocolli, but we live in the country and grow a lot of our own food, so mainly when it's growing in our garden and in season. I'll have to look into the nuts and such to see what good sources there are
I'm allergic to coconut, so I have to pass on that one though.
Thanks for the tip about the acidic enviornment, that should be useful.

As far as what happened... well I don't really know what to say. It is what it is, I guess? onder:

 

[epileric]

There have been a lot of claims re. alkaline & acidity in the digestive tract but our stomachs are filled with acid & that has not been shown to change.

Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense
Gabe Mirkin, M.D.​

Have you seen advertisements for products such as coral calcium or alkaline water that are supposed to neutralize acid in your bloodstream? Taking calcium or drinking alkaline water does not affect blood acidity. Anyone who tells you that certain foods or supplements make your stomach or blood acidic does not understand nutrition.

You should not believe that it matters whether foods are acidic or alkaline, because no foods change the acidity of anything in your body except your urine. Your stomach is so acidic that no food can change its acidity. Citrus fruits, vinegar, and vitamins such as ascorbic acid or folic acid do not change the acidity of your stomach or your bloodstream. An entire bottle of calcium pills or antacids would not change the acidity of your stomach for more than a few minutes.

All foods that leave your stomach are acidic. Then they enter your intestines where secretions from your pancreas neutralize the stomach acids. So no matter what you eat, the food in stomach is acidic and the food in the intestines is alkaline.

Dietary modification cannot change the acidity of any part of your body except your urine. Your bloodstream and organs control acidity in a very narrow range. Anything that changed acidity in your body would make you very sick and could even kill you. Promoters of these products claim that cancer cells cannot live in an alkaline environment and that is true, but neither can any of the other cells in your body.

All chemical reactions in your body are started by chemicals called enzymes. For example, if you convert chemical A to chemical B and release energy, enzymes must start these reactions. All enzymes function in a very narrow range of acidity. (The degree of acidity or alkalinity is expressed as "pH."). If your blood changes its acidity or alkalinity for any reason, it is quickly changed back to the normal pH or these enzymes would not function and the necessary chemical reactions would not proceed in your body.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/coral2.html

 

[Silat]

Interesting read... very informative. I did not know much about that...
And this line is priceless:

Promoters of these products claim that cancer cells cannot live in an alkaline environment and that is true, but neither can any of the other cells in your body.

 

[AngelwithDentedHalo]

I've seen that stuff in stores, when I saw the name, it made me think of batteries lol I thought if that's the same stuff, don't want no part of it.

 

[LJ-Bain]

What a terrifying experience for you. I hope it is not to be repeated. I have had low calcium levels during my last big cluster. It is interesting how something so simple can have a huge impact on the delicate balance within our body.

 

[Nakamova]

Eric --

To clarify, my advice to Silat about calcium wasn't about changing the entire acid environment in the stomach, only about taking any calcium supplements with ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). Vitamin C improves calcium absorption, whereas foods that are high in oxalic acid (spinach, collard greens) can interfere with it's absorption.

 

[epileric]

Eric --

To clarify, my advice to Silat about calcium wasn't about changing the entire acid environment in the stomach, only about taking any calcium supplements with ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). Vitamin C improves calcium absorption, whereas foods that are high in oxalic acid (spinach, collard greens) can interfere with it's absorption.

Sorry, I thought you were saying it was the Ph that determined absorption.

 

[Nakamova]

No, my bad -- I should have been clearer that I was talking about Vitamin C acid as opposed too all acid.

 

[epileric]

When I was younger there were people who used to talk about acid & it was nothing like this.

Now They bad!!!