Epilepsy and Nightmares!!!

[Elaine H]

Hi Guys

I am currently trying to help a young guy who has been recently diagnosed with TLE, he is of course devastated, his employer has sacked him, his wife has left him, and of course he has lost his driving license!! He rang me this morning asking if it was common to have bad nightmares with epilepsy? I said that I had bad problems with them, and from what I had read, it was pretty common to have them with TLE, and it was this part of the brain that deals with these things. By the way, he is being started off on the AED Tegretol /Carbamazepine and wondered if this would cause nightmares.

I just wanted to know if you would mind telling me about your experiences of nightmares so that I can pass them onto him, he is only a young man and I so want him to know that he is not alone here, I have given him all the info to join us here on CWE, but of course I think he is still in denial a little bit, and when he is ready he will join and start asking his own questions, for now, he will have to make do with me, but I get the greatest of pleasure being able to help other folk, and to give something back, and just help!

No matter how crazy your dreams are folks, I want to hear all about them ok?! They cannot be any stranger than mine!!!! :roflmao:Meanwhile, after several visits to casualty this week, I still have 1st degree burns to my entire right hand, following a seizure whilst drying my hair, yep, you can imagine what happened huh? I was out of it, but I must have cupped my right hand around the dryer while it continued to blow, it is so painful!!!! I go back tomorrow for another change of dressing, I never realised that my fingers could swell up to this extent, and if I have made any typing errors, apologies!!! I hope you will drop me a line, I am feeling pretty blue at the moment guys!!!!

Hope you are all ok guys?!

Lotsalove

Lainey xxxx

 

[tabbycat]

hi! i was on tegretol for 10 years, my problems are located in the left temporal lobe area. i don't have nightmares or bad dreams, at least not more than any other person i think; perhaps a couple of times a year or so.

i'm now on lamictal instead of the tegretol and i have noticed that i dream a lot every night! i remember my dreams throughout the day and sometimes for several days. if i have told someone about them i remember them even longer.

perhaps the nightmares are caused by the "stress" + the fact that he has been going through lots of bad things recently, with the diagnosis and everything. just a guess!

hope they go away no matter whats the cause!

 

[knothing]

Sorry about the burns, hopefully they heal soon.

For they guy you are helping he is very lucky to have you helping him since it looks like others just abandoned him. Lainey to the rescue!!!

I wish I could help on the nightmares but that is something I never have. If I do I don't remember them. Dreams I do have but most are just boring with odd little things going on. I used to think my deja vu was something I dreamed until I found out better.

Sorry I am no help but wishing you better health and I hope he appreciates the great help he is getting.

 

[Nakamova]

I don't have TLE, but when I first went on Lamictal I had crazy nightmares throughout the night -- they would involve everything from strange violent creatures and encounters, to sensing that someone evil had broken into my apartment and was about to enter my bedroom. I think that's the strangeness of them , the sense of evil, that I've never had in my "usual" nightmares. After adjusting to the Lamictal my nightmares more or less went away.

Lainey -- I hope your hand heals up soon. I have a giant aloe plant in my place -- if I could I send you a few leaves of it so you have some balm to put on the wound.

 

[Rhea]

awwww, Elaine, ((((((hugs)))))) I'm so sorry you are hurt. Hope it heals really fast. Does it mean no washing dishes???

 

[seizingbeauty]

Sorry to hear your feeling smurfy Hope the burns heal soon!
As to the nightnames, honestly my lifes been "a bit of a mess" (to put it nicely). I've had vivid nightmares all my life. Its only been in the last 5 years that I've begun to sleep with some comfort. We bought a really cool pull out sofa-bed so that I can sleep against the back. I use to hurt myself when I slept cuz I would either fall out of bed or hit the wall.

 

[CathyAnn31]

i'm now on lamictal instead of the tegretol and i have noticed that i dream a lot every night! i remember my dreams throughout the day and sometimes for several days. if i have told someone about them i remember them even longer.

This is me as well. I am enjoying the odd dreams for the most part, and kind of look forward to going to bed each night. :yippee:

Only had one nightmare, snakes were invading my house!!

And wow, I didnt read everything before I posted. I hope your hand gets better ASAP.

 

[Loopy Lou]

I hope your hand gets better soon!

I've got temporal lobe epilepsy (more in the left than the right - does that make a difference?)

Anyhoo, i've always had very vivid dreams and nightmares. Used to really shake me up. I've not had so many recently, whilst i've been on the Lamictal. I normally remember my dreams too.​

 

[horsehead]

I have been dxed with pseudo seizures but I have really bad nightmares all the time.They are very vivid,Im normally running from something.Dreams about war and the world ending.spiders and bugs everywhere.

 

[tripletdad]

I get bad Nightmares too

I have left temp lobe E as well a d I have HORRIBLE nightmares. They seem to come in clusters and are worse with stress (i have a lot of that) and eating late (as I work a lot and get home late), but they are so bad I am often afraid to sleep at night and find myself going long stretches with little or no sleep.

Nightmare usually revolve around losing my family or suffocating. Sometimes its some form of strange monster that stalks my dreams.

I do find that exercise seems to help lesson their frequency.

 

[Meetz1064]

I don't

have TLE, but I do have some doozies of nightmares. Not as many as I used to thankfully, but they ARE pretty vivid ones now. I don't know if it's a combination of my meds that does that, or just the Lamictal, or what.....I do tend to think that they've been more vivid since I been back on Lam. They were pretty vivid the first time I was on it....

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, Elaine. Hopefully he will get on here soon for some support. Best of luck to him. And I didn't think his employer could sack him like that over in England......or does it depend on the type of job?

Take care,

Meetz
:rock:

 

[epileric]

For the longest time I only ever had one dream/nightmare. I was about 4 or 5 years old & my mom had bought this little hairdryer. It looked like a shower cap with a hose that went to a small vacuum type thing that blew hot air through the hose. She'd sit with it on and dry her hair while watching me. One day she took me to the salon where they use those big hair dryers that pretty well engulf your whole head.

Soon after, maybe that same night, I had a nightmare that my mom was sitting at home but under the big salon hair dryer & that it came alive, swallowed her then started barking and was going to swallow me.

I had that nightmare twice, after that I never remembered any of my dreams until I was about 45 years old. Even now I find it hard to remember my dreams, I usually need to see something that triggers the memory.

Of course to this day I've never stepped foot into a hair salon again LOL.

 

[wanderlust]

Ouch!!! I hope your burns feel better soon! And I am sorry to hear your friend is going through such a hard time at the moment .

I started lamotrigine about a month ago, and I dream pretty much every single night, about all sorts of things, although I noticed I was dreaming more than usual a little bit before starting medication as well.. When I used to have dreams before starting medication, I would forget what I had dreamt about not long after waking up but now the dreams I have now are very vivid, sometimes they are unpleasant sometimes they are not. Sometimes I have bad dreams and good dreams in the same night. I think, for me, the reason why the bad dreams feel so bad is because of the vivid nature of them. Instead of waking up and thinking 'Thank goodness it was only a dream', it's more of a 'WOAH that felt real' sensation, if that makes sense. But as I mentioned, some of the dreams aren't that bad. Last night I dreamed I was sitting on the beach at night time, looking across the water at a huge city that was covered in beautiful lights. It was actually quite nice hahaha

 

[bigbro]

Meanwhile, after several visits to casualty this week, I still have 1st degree burns to my entire right hand, following a seizure whilst drying my hair, yep, you can imagine what happened huh? I was out of it, but I must have cupped my right hand around the dryer while it continued to blow, it is so painful!!!! I go back tomorrow for another change of dressing, I never realised that my fingers could swell up to this extent, and if I have made any typing errors, apologies!!! I hope you will drop me a line, I am feeling pretty blue at the moment guys!!!!

You poor thing. I hope your fingers get better, good thing you only have 1st degree burns (but they are the most painful!). Reading this forum makes me realize how good my life actually is. When I thought about how to describe my sister's life, the Book of Job was the first thing that came to mind. You all struggle, but silently. I don't think most people can comprehend it.

Best wishes,
BB

 

[Shelley]

strange

The other night, I was trying to catch a flight, apparently.
I was trying to navigate the terminal, and kept winding up in some mega-cafeteria.
The plane takes off and banks very low, but I am frustrated that I can't make the flight.

 

[Cinnabar]

Since I've been on Lamictal my dream recall has decreased and I really miss my intricate off the wall dreams. Even the nightmares. They're usually pretty interesting at the end of it all.

 

[Shelley]

yuk

I was in a very strange house with windows in all the wrong places. There was a tent city in the back yard.
Then I saw my ex-husband in the buff.

 

[Shelley]

pbs and dreams

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dreams/
They had a pretty good show on dreams last night.
It explained nightmares.
Looking for video to post.

 

[Cheri]

I'm new here and it looks like this thread was started over 6 months ago, but just wanted to say that before I started back on Tegretol in 2008, I had horrible nightmares beginning in 2005. Mine were really frightening and bizarre. I had them sometimes several times a week. Some were similar to night terrors, some like scary lucid dreams, but my overall dream experiences had turned very sinister and strange, and for a while I actually thought I was being tormented by demons. I no longer believe that! I only wish I'd known that seizures could be related to something like this.

When my seizure symptoms started up again in 2008, my doctor put me back on Tegretol, and not only did the seizures stop but all of the horrible nighttime experiences stopped within a week! For me, Tegretol was a wonder drug. My doctor speculated my nightmares were "brain static" related to a brain already misfiring.

I've tried to find other people with stories like mine but haven't really found much.

I don't know if that would be reassuring to your friend, but for me it was Tegretol that got rid of the nightmares and I hope that will be true for him, too.

I found a reference online to "stereotypical nightmares of TLE," and I have searched everywhere for an explanation of what those are. Does anyone know?

 

[neilB]

I was on Tegretol (Carbamezapine) and had BIZARRE dreams. I'm now off the Tegretol but on Keppra and the dreams are even stranger. The really strange dreams started the night before my first seizure, about 7 years ago. So, I've kinda chalked it up to that thing between my ears.