Has anyone ever succeeded in stopping an imminent seizure from coming on?

[Bluesbrkr]

I haven't been able to stop it completely, but sometimes can reduce the intensity of it by breathing deeply and focusing. Doesn't always work though.

[jyearta]

I can say this stop a seizure, but I keep a puzzle out on my dinning room table. When I get that FEELING (this is if I remember) I go in there and start working on it. It seems to me that I get all involved in the puzzle that the next thing I know time has passed with no seizure.
I just need to REMEMBER to go there.

[petero]

I'm just curious if anyone has found this possible. I read this heartening book "Epilepsy: A New Approach" which says the author spoke to persons who managed to do this. (Such as just tell it to back off or something.)

I'd be curious to know if anyone has managed to do this and what techniques they used.

although I'm not sure, what I've figured might be simple partial type of seizures I have been able to force myself from, although it's a sort of painful to do it - a bit like compression force like taking off in a jet airplane, but in my 'head', sortof like a headrush, but a bottoming-out sensation - it's hard to describe.
I have lucid dreams a bit often too - so maybe there's some relation.
it's like really forcing myself to stay awake when I'm way beyond sleepy.
but I don't have an EEG at home so there's no way for me to really tell what it is.

But then I think I heard a doctor tell me once that it wasn't possible.
so..? I don't know

[motorbill66]

I wish some of the techniques described here would, or even could, work for me. When I start to experience my aura absolutely nothing seems real. Lots of my seizure are nocturnal, so there's now way to stop them, but here's what happens when I am awake leading up to one: First I begin to have sudden flashes of fright and paranoia. Then, since these are feelings almost anyone might have in a transitory sudden moment, I go into denial about it, thinking,"Oh that was nothing. Just some freak feeling. Or there was something in my peripheral vision that moved suddenly and startled me." It gradually turns into feelings of stark reasonless fright bordering on terror. I become unable to distinguish between reality and illusion. In other words, by the time I figure out what's going on, I'm beyond all reason. Sometimes, my wife tells me, I jump out of bed while totally asleep and run down the hall. Suddenly I try to grab the wall and then collapse on the floor and go into a monster gran mal (the only type I have) She tries to keep me from being injured and stays with me for quite a while after the two or three minute rigid- jerking- tongue biting (now permantly distorted) episode, during which she tells me I most often quit beathing and turn blue. Eventually, I become semi-consious and start to come around after sleeping on the floor, wherever it happened, for a while. She then helps me up and puts me to bed. Recently, something I have dreaded for a long time happened. I fell down a flight of stairs leading to our basement/den. Fortunately I didn't break my neck, but I had to lay there in a pile on the landing for a half hour before I could crawl up the steps.

So you see, I usually don't have enough warning to do anything. I use lamictal, and It makes my feel dumb, and I have trouble concentrating. I also get dizzy and am sometimes unsteady on my feet. These same feelings sometimes precede a monster seizure, sometimes more than an hour ahead. That makes it difficult to know whether it's just the drug, or a biggie is coming. Hold on now, therre is something pertinent to the conversation coming!

I recently spent three days in the hospital having a continuouslley monitored EEG. That was fun...not. Having twenty five wires glued to your skull and being tethered to a ten foot cord is not my idea of a vacation! They withdrew all my meds and waited for me to produce three seizures. I obliged them with three classic beauties! The point is, when I had the last, and worst, one, They injected me through an IV with ativan. My wife, Linda, had stayed for that three days. She said that the instant the gave me the injection I relaxed and slept peacefully for 10 hours.

I asked my neurologist about this and he said that there are some other drugs that might help. I have taken Xanax for years very infrequently to get to sleep. Now, when I get those wierd feelings that MIGHT lead to a seizure I take one. I do believe that it has kept me from going into one or has minimized it somewhat several times now.

I don't like chemical approaches to every little thing, but as I suppose you can tell, I really need to stop these things any way I can.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

[petero]

.......a monster gran mal (the only type I have) She tries to keep me from being injured and stays with me for quite a while after the two or three minute rigid- jerking- tongue biting (now permantly distorted) episode, during which she tells me I most often quit beathing and turn blue.
......I fell down a flight of stairs leading to our basement/den. Fortunately I didn't break my neck, but I had to lay there in a pile on the landing for a half hour before I could crawl up the steps.
.......
I recently spent three days in the hospital having a continuouslley monitored EEG.

I'm pretty sure I've had sleep seizure periods... and some of what you describe has sounded familiar to some things I've experienced, regarding the everything-turning-weird, alternate world type of thing...

but if you're becoming unconscious and turning blue your wife needs to keep a finger on the 911 speed dial and one on your pulse my good man.

if you stop breathing for any longer than, I don't know, maybe 10-15 seconds, you need to inform your wife to get on alert with the 911 call
and both of you review some CPR methods.

I consider a sleep-deprived EEG a possibility, I've never had a seizure-positive EEG, but I would need to know more about the process. But I think my seizures are fairly well under control, and I don't consider it a big necessity, other than in trying to help doctors understand seizures.

I haven't woken up on the bathroom floor above a small pool of blood and with a gash in my forehead like I had previous to being diagnosed and dosed. I haven't had a tonic-clonic (that I know of, maybe in my sleep: strange cramps, migraines, sometimes strange scratches...) I still get some weird auras, which may also have some psychological basis, and I'm still working on that, but sometimes they seem beneficial in describing things I need in my mind, but in a altered, conceptual format. It's hard to comprehend them in the bizarreo-land when they're occuring, but once they're done they're more clarified, and less of an issue. At least to my barin dmeagad mind.

Child-proof lock the doors by stairs! Don't fall down stairs! Alert your wife to emergency-mode when you stop breathing and turn blue! That's very very bad!

[motorbill66]

Petrox,
Thanks for your reply. It seems that lately I haven't been doing the stop-breathing thing much at all, and yes, my precious wife has called the medics when things have gotten out of hand. The getting up and running down the hall business has only begun in the last several months and we are trying to find a floor to cieling barrier. There is no door unfortunately. If we don't find something soon I'll have to build one in, though it's a really bad location for one, right in the middle of a narrow hall.

I'd also be interested in hearing about other people's post-ictal experiences. I go into a strange rhythmic breathing where I can't seem to catch my breath for what seems like forever. Do you know of any discussion like this on the forum? I'm relatively new and haven't quite learned how to navigate to things yet.

It's good to hear from somebody else who's had these strange, just about undescribable auras, and again, thanks so much for your concern.

[Nakamova]

It's not unusual for people to sound like they are breathing strangely right after a grand-mal seizure. In some cases the person may seem to start snoring loudly following a seizure, before coming to. This just means that the person is beginning to breathe properly and does not mean that they're suffocating.

But if you routinely have post-seizure breathing problems, it might be worth having a sleep study done to make sure you're not being bothered by apnea at night.

[petero]

...The getting up and running down the hall business has only begun in the last several months and we are trying to find a floor to cieling barrier. There is no door unfortunately. If we don't find something soon I'll have to build one in, though it's a really bad location for one, right in the middle of a narrow hall....

heya motorbill

I recall hearing somewhere that one recommendation for that type of seizure or nocturnal thing - is that to put a motion sensitive light in the area, the area right outside of the bedroom for instance, or where you walk if it's a certain area

it wouldn't get you out of a seizure, or wake from a nocturnal thing necessarily, somnambulism or whatnot, but it could shift the brain enough to at least nudge you toward a more alert mental state. And sometimes during these states people can "see" but not really be "there", but the brain could still process events, spatial perceptions and things

[jyearta]

Endless You may want to ask Nakamova & Epileric what happened when they stopped their meds. Both have a story.

Is there a thread with in this forum that I can read about their experience.

[Cint]

I wish some of the techniques described here would, or even could, work for me. When I start to experience my aura absolutely nothing seems real. ....... First I begin to have sudden flashes of fright and paranoia. Then, since these are feelings almost anyone might have in a transitory sudden moment, I go into denial about it, thinking,"Oh that was nothing. Just some freak feeling. Or there was something in my peripheral vision that moved suddenly and startled me." It gradually turns into feelings of stark reasonless fright bordering on terror. I become unable to distinguish between reality and illusion. In other words, by the time I figure out what's going on, I'm beyond all reason............... and turn blue.



I recently spent three days in the hospital having a continuouslley monitored EEG. That was fun...not. Having twenty five wires glued to your skull and being tethered to a ten foot cord is not my idea of a vacation! They withdrew all my meds and waited for me to produce three seizures. I obliged them with three classic beauties! The point is, when I had the last, and worst, one, They injected me through an IV with ativan.

I asked my neurologist about this and he said that there are some other drugs that might help. I have taken Xanax for years very infrequently to get to sleep. Now, when I get those wierd feelings that MIGHT lead to a seizure I take one. I do believe that it has kept me from going into one or has minimized it somewhat several times now.

I don't like chemical approaches to every little thing, but as I suppose you can tell, I really need to stop these things any way I can.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

First, in reply to the original question, I now am able to stop an imminent seizure from coming on, but not by my own power. I have the VNS and have been able to stop seizures with it. I've been in serious accident(s), had 1st and 2nd degree burns from a tonic clonic seizure, experienced many falls, black eyes, bruises, cuts, headaches, etc. and have had a temporal lobectomy for seizure control, to no avail. I've turned blue many times also and my children have witnessed it in their earlier years, scared, thinking their mom was dying. Not something a kid should ever have to witness (their dad is a pilot, so was gone a good deal of the time). I've tried 10 anti-epileptic drug's, also, and don't like chemicals being poured into my body either, but I don't like experiencing pain and suffering from the accidents the vicious seizures are apt to cause.

So, yes, I have experienced some of the "madness" and I think you should work with your neurologist to stop the seizures.