Seizures caused by stress and anxiety?

[batman84]

Greetings. I'm going to try to keep this short as possible.

Today I am home from work recovering from my third seizure since March 2010 (when I had two "out of the blue" seizures in one day). After my first two seizures, I was referred to a Neurologist who placed me on medication. Since then, I have been seeing him biannually just for a check-up and refills. At this point, I wasn't sure if I had epilepsy or not, but I stayed on the medication because I felt like it was helping with my anxiety as well.

Last night, I had my first seizure since then and it was pretty scary. My wife ended up taking me to the emergency room for evaluation. The doctor gave me a good run down of epilepsy and thought that I probably have it. I'm going back to my Neurologist tomorrow for further input.

I came here because I am wondering if anyone has ever heard of or experienced stress and/or anxiety induced seizures. I won't get into my (very, very, long) story here about my battle with anxiety, OCD, paranoia, and stress, but I was wondering if this could be legitimate causes for seizures. I am stressed and anxious at home and work. I generally never spend a moment without something to stress or worry about, and it's become quite debilitating.

The reason I ask is that I had a career change lately. I went from an incredibly slow paced job working on one project at a time to a career where I juggle close to six or seven major projects at once with very short turnaround times. There have been a few days I have become so stressed that I shake, my ears ring, and my voice quivers. Couple this with my extreme OCD tendencies, generalized anxiety, and paranoia, and I usually come home from quite a day.

So... has anyone experienced seizures caused by the issues listed above? Can they caused by this?

I'm just curious, because over the course of close to two years, I've only had three seizures (two of which were in one day).

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[dontmindbea]

You may want to look at pyschogenic non-epileptic seizures--

Stress and Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures

A seizure that occurs in a person who does not suffer from epilepsy is called a psychogenic non-epileptic seizure. Although the seizure often appears to mimic an epileptic seizure, it is not caused by abnormal electrical discharges in the brain. Often people that have psychogenic non-epileptic seizures are misdiagnosed as having epilepsy. The causes of a psychogenic non-epileptic seizure, also known as a psychogenic non-epileptic seizures or pseudo seizure, are emotional or stress related. This type of seizure can also result from experiences from the past that seem forgotten but had a traumatic psychological effect at the time. Other stress related causes of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures include:

•Conversion disorder - the seizures themselves are the physical symptoms converted from the emotional distress
•Post traumatic stress disorder
•Depression
•Anxiety disorders
•Acute stress that overwhelms the person's ability to cope

When a psychogenic non-epileptic seizure occurs it is not being consciously produced by the person. When stress builds to extreme levels and results in a seizure, it is the only way for the body to cope with the stress. For people suffering fro post traumatic stress disorder it is the body's way of manifesting the stress that resulted from the trauma, even if it occurred long ago.

(just some info I found that may be helpful! hope this is useful to you =) )

[Nakamova]

Both epileptic seizures and non-epileptic seizures can be triggered by emotional stress. This is because stress can have secondary physical and physiological effects that can act as seizure triggers. Stress can alter sleep, metabolism, respiration, hormones, etc., and the effects can cumulative.

My initial [epileptic] seizures were in part triggered by stress (the break-up of a long-term relationship). My hunch is that the stress resulted in low blood sugar and fatigue. Those factors, combined with excessive aspartame consumption and perhaps a pre-existing low seizure threshold, led to the seizures.

[batman84]

Thank you both for the responses! Very insightful and informative. I had some a little bit of research on psychogenic epilepsy, but I didn't not know that stress could cause epileptic seizures.

I'll have to bring these items up at my appointment tomorrow and see what kind of input my neurologist can provide.

Thanks again for the replies.

[elizzza811]

I personally don't believe in psychogenic seizures - I believe they are every bit as 'electrical' as any grand mal, just too deep within the brain to show up on an EEG. My own severe anxiety turned out to be seizure-related, and just like happened with you, seizure meds helped me also with what doctors were calling anxiety. I somehow can't believe that is mere coincidence - seizure meds help anxiety? An alarm should have gone off years ago in the heads of every neurologist out there.

Truthfully, I often wonder how many more people are out there like me, inappropriately diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when in fact they were suffering seizures. I can totally relate to your post too because I'm on disability for severe OCD, crippling OCD. And I truly believe my seizures and OCD are also related. OCD isn't mental illness any more than Alzheimer's is. I just hope I live long enough to see this proven. But figure the odds when researchers haven't even heard the alarm about the anxiety-seizure relationship...

[valeriedl]

A lot of my seizures are brought on by stress. Any time that a stressful event happens I'm almost gurainteed to have a seizure.

[Blue Eyes]

Hi, Batman! I have seizures with and without stress. The only major seizure I ever had (in 8 years time) occurred during an extremely emotional situation. Before (and after) the seizure occurred, I could not speak about an upcoming, sure to be hostile meeting (and it was!), without shaking all over. The anxiety was terrible, and after two weeks, I had "the big one."

I'd like to add that there are many meds on the market that are very effective in relieving anxiety. I've suffered from anxiety since childhood. Medication keeps it in check--THANK GOD! I recommend shopping around for a good psychiatrist, but if you are opposed to that, many family practitioners are wiling to treat depression and anxiety.

And, I agree with Elizza. The term "mental illness" is so outdated. Disorders that affect emotions and behavior are manifestations of a physical problem in the brain.

Good luck with your upcoming appt.

Blue Eyes