Husband has seizures

[Suzanne H]

Hello,

I'm brand new here and it's my husband who is having seizures. This is all so new to us and I'm scared as anything. Over a year ago, my husband was driving alone and he felt strange, pulled over and remembers shaking. He doesn't know if he passed out or anything and when it passed, he drove home. I took him to the hospital because he is 65 with a history of heart problems but his stats were good and his family doctor figured it was his heart and sent him to tons of heart tests which were all fine. No one tested him for seizures. Fast forward one year later and almost on the same date, Mike had a seizure at night while sleeping. I didn't know it was a seizure and called 911. They referred him to a neurologist and discovered he had evidence of a childhood wound - scarring - on his right temple and they think this is the cause of his seizures as childhood traumas can come back to haunt you. So in Feb. he was put on meds and this weekend - four months later - he had another seizure while sleeping. Freaked me out so I called 911 again. Unfortunately, his neurologist is away this week.

I have lots of questions. When he has a seizure when he's sleeping - do I wake him up after or just let him sleep it off?

And - most important - I am so scared to leave him to go shopping or to my own appointments. How do people cope with the fear of leaving him, even for an hour???

Any advice?

Suzanne

 

[Nakamova]

Hi Suzanne H, welcome to CWE!

Is your husband having tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures? I know they can look scary, but if you know what to expect, you don't necessarily need to call 911 every time one happens. You should get in touch with his neurologist however, to let him know what happened and discuss whether the medication needs to be tweaked.

Here's some good general info as to what to do:

WHAT HAPPENS IN A TONIC-CLONIC SEIZURE:
The person goes stiff, loses consciousness and then falls to the ground. This is followed by jerking movements. A blue tinge around the mouth is likely (and normal -- this is due to irregular breathing.) Loss of bladder and/or bowel control may happen. After a minute or two the jerking movements should stop and consciousness may slowly return.

DO:
-- Protect the person from injury - (remove harmful objects from nearby)
-- Cushion their head
-- Aid breathing by gently placing them on their side once the seizure has finished
-- Stay with the person until recovery is complete
-- Let the person know what has happened, and reassure them

DON'T:
-- Restrain the person’s movements
-- Put anything in the person’s mouth
-- Try to move them unless they are in danger
-- Give them anything to eat or drink until they are fully recovered
-- Attempt to bring them round

CALL AN AMBULANCE IF:
-- You know it is the person’s first seizure
-- The seizure continues for more than five minutes
-- One tonic-clonic seizure follows another without the person regaining consciousness between seizures
-- The person is injured during the seizure
-- You believe the person needs urgent medical attention

In terms of how protective to be -- everyone's situation is different. You should get a sense from the neurologist of what the risks are if your husband has a seizure while home alone. I'd like to reassure you that your husband will be fine, but people have very different needs and expectations. I can say that grand mal seizures look worse than they feel. The person having one is unconscious, feels no pain during it, and has no memory of what happened. There can be injuries -- I've gotten bumped and bruised, injured my shoulder a few times, and broken a glass cabinet (at someone else's house). I live alone and have had the majority of my seizures with no one else around. This doesn't worry me, but I certainly understand if it makes my friends and relatives a tad nervous -- it's natural to be concerned, and it may take some time before you figure out how to gauge what your reaction should be.

Best,
Nakamova

 

[JLogefeil]

I'm not very smart, but I do know is that if he is sleeping and has a seizure wake hip up and just make sure he is ok. If he is then let him sleep that is normal after a seizure.
My husband leves me so he can go work and I don't like it but he has to go to support us and so we talked about getting me a seizure alert dog, I m now on meds and there working I m not having as many but I still have some.
Have you thought about getting a seizure alert dog? Maybe a family member a home health care worker can watch him while you are working.
Keep a journal of his seizures and what happened before during and after. Also he shouldn't be driving. Please get him some help for his seizures.

 

[valeriedl]

I know it's scary at first, my family felt the same way as you do at first. They were afraid to leave me out of their sight, even if I went to the bathroom.

You both need to understand that he has epilepsy now and you're going to live your life a little differently. He's still a man so don't treat him like a little kid. You don't need to go out and get one of those child leashes for him so that you can always know where he is and he won't get out of your sight.

Does he know when one is coming on when he's awake? If he does and is alone then he can sit down and wait for it to happen. When he feels ok again then he can get up and start moving around.

Go ahead and leave him alone. Just tell him not to do any type of cooking in the oven or on the stove. Have him heat stuff up in the microwave. Let him know that he shouldn't get up on a ladder or something that if he were to have a seizure while doing it he could hurt himself pretty bad. If you're there with him go ahead and let him do it, just don't be standing two feet behind him the whole time.

He probably won't beable to drive so he's going to have to rely on you or someone else to get him around. I don't know if you have public transportation in your area or not, but at first I'd say not to go on that alone.

My husband is pretty over protective of me, not as bad as at first though. He works from 5am to 3pm and was parinoid to leave me alone for that amount of time. He would call me several times a day to make sure I was ok. Now I just send him a text message in the morning to let him know I took my meds. If he doesn't get the message then he calls to make sure I'm ok. I have family that lives next door and if I think I've had a seizure (I usually don't know that I've had one) I call them and they come over. I'll let my husband know that I've had it and how I'm doing.

The thing that drives me the craziest about him is he has to know where I am any time we go out shopping. I swear if he could get one of those leashes for me he would!

If I'm out with family they let me get my own buggy and go off on my own. They will call me every so often (maybe 20 minutes or so) to make sure I'm alright. There's enough people in a store that if I were to have a seizure someone would see me know and get ahold of someone who works in the store.

As I said he's still a man so treat him like one. You don't need to tie him to a chair while you are gone so he can't get up and hurt himself. There things that he needs to realzie that he shouldn't do when he's alone, and you need to realize that he can do things that you think he shouldn't and that he can be left alone.