Crystalblue
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So, after lurking for days, I feel like I owe you guys a little explanation. Let me warn you now, brevity is not my strong suit - sorry. You might want to sit down and grab a snack 
op:
OK, so, if you're still with me, that's a good sign. Back in 2003 I had an episode of weird behavior, totally unlike myself. I was a straight A nursing student at the time, married with 1 son. I've struggled with depression pretty much all my life, and I have diabetes, but that's about it for major issues. This behavior occured right after starting a new treatment for the depression. The doc I saw at the time thought it could have actually been a seizure, something I'd never had before and have no family history of (that I know of, there are some gaps on my father's side). So I had an EEG, it was "abnormal". I didn't get a copy of the report, (something I always do now), but it mentioned the L temporal lobe. I was unconvinced. I had the EEG repeated at the local hospital - showed the same thing. I went to see a neurologist who put me on Trileptal, "as a precaution", she said. As I'd never had any typical seizure symptoms, and nothing since that one episode.
Maybe about 6 months to a year later, I saw another doc. When I explained why I was on the Trileptal, he asked a lot of questions etc. I'd still had not so much as a twitch at that point, and he thought the behavior had actually been an episode of mania brought on by the new depression Tx, which I guess has been known to happen. I had stopped the Tx shortly after the episode due to other side effects anyways. He said that if he brought in 10 "normal" people off the street, who had never had seizures in their life, and did an EEG on them, about half would be "abnormal" in some way. We stopped the trileptal.
Flash forward to this March, 6 years later. I'm still married, have 2 more sons, working as a nurse on the nightshift. I'vd been having some trouble sleeping during the days, and this 1 particular day, I had actually slept the night before, but was way behind on sleep the few days before that. My oldest had a dentist appointment at 8AM. On the way home, I didn't feel particularly sleepy or anything, my blood sugar was fine- everything seemed fine. Then, the next thing I know I'm in the middle of an intersection w/this big truck coming right at us. My first thought was "why is this guy pulling in front of us?" (He was making a L turn) Then I looked up and saw that we were running through a red light. I managed not to hit him, but scared the crap out of my son, myself and the guy in the truck. We left actual skid marks on the road. Well, my first thought was to just get the Hell out of there, before someone thought I was a drunk driver or something. It didn't start sinking in until we were almost home. I had totally "blanked out". There was no warning, I hadn't fallen asleep, it was just Boom, there we were, like time skipped a beat.
I got pretty scared and upset. The fact that my son had been in the car w/ me was really freaking me out. I had practically forgotten about the EEG and everything from '03, but it all came back to me then. And also the memory of when I rear-ended a car on the highway, totalling my car, while 7 months pregnant w/ my oldest. (this would have been in '01, before the original EEG or anything) I wasn't really hurt, but did start to go into early labor, which they were able to stop at the hospital. The accident never really made sense to me, it was like, one second I'm driving along, the next second there's this car 10 feet in front of me. But it got pretty much written off as "distracted pregnant lady rear-ends someone, happens every day". I did get cited in the accident, but thank God, no one in the other car was hurt. And I was on a nasty stretch of highway, where there's practically an accident every day, so nobody thought much about it. I'll admit, it did nag at me, how the whole thing happened, but I was defensive and even a little embarrassed, I just wanted it to "go away". And it pretty much did. We paid the fine, got a new car, my son was born a couple months later. He had some serious complications at birth and in his first couple months, totally un-related to the accident. There was a time I thought we might lose him, so that was pretty much the only thing on my mind. The accident was all but forgotten.
Until that day last March. I let it all out to my PCP, almost like it was a confession. She pulled up the old EEG on her computer. Then proceeded to tell me I have epilepsy, I need to see a neurologist, and I can't drive for at least 6 months. Just like that. It was like someone pulled the rug out from under my feet. I'm practically a soccer mom here! I'm driving my kids somewhere at least a few times every day! Not to mention that my job is 35 miles away and I work the night shift! There's no public transportation around here either. Then I wasn't even sure if it was SAFE for me to work. My boss took me off the schedule until she got a letter from my PCP, which, thankfully, came in right away. It said I have absence seizures that wouldn't effect patient care, and it was safe to work. Yeah, if I could just GET THERE! My family depends on my income. My husbands job takes up a lot of time but doesn't pay nearly as well as mine.
So, of course, no neurologist can see me until late May at the earliest. I feel like I'm stuck in purgatory here. I'm not even sure I DO have epilepsy, and here's why-
-The EEG says it's in my temporal lobe- but little absence seizures aren't usually a symptom of TLE.
-From the research I've done, I guess it's very rare to have absence seizures in an adult, especially if not accompanied by other types of seizures.
- I've never had anything like a seizure besides these episodes, which are like 6 years apart. Neither my husband, nor anyone else has ever noticed me just staring of
into space for a few seconds ie: having absence seizures.
-Maybe I'm just a bad driver?
Or maybe I'm just in denial. Any thoughts?
op:OK, so, if you're still with me, that's a good sign. Back in 2003 I had an episode of weird behavior, totally unlike myself. I was a straight A nursing student at the time, married with 1 son. I've struggled with depression pretty much all my life, and I have diabetes, but that's about it for major issues. This behavior occured right after starting a new treatment for the depression. The doc I saw at the time thought it could have actually been a seizure, something I'd never had before and have no family history of (that I know of, there are some gaps on my father's side). So I had an EEG, it was "abnormal". I didn't get a copy of the report, (something I always do now), but it mentioned the L temporal lobe. I was unconvinced. I had the EEG repeated at the local hospital - showed the same thing. I went to see a neurologist who put me on Trileptal, "as a precaution", she said. As I'd never had any typical seizure symptoms, and nothing since that one episode.
Maybe about 6 months to a year later, I saw another doc. When I explained why I was on the Trileptal, he asked a lot of questions etc. I'd still had not so much as a twitch at that point, and he thought the behavior had actually been an episode of mania brought on by the new depression Tx, which I guess has been known to happen. I had stopped the Tx shortly after the episode due to other side effects anyways. He said that if he brought in 10 "normal" people off the street, who had never had seizures in their life, and did an EEG on them, about half would be "abnormal" in some way. We stopped the trileptal.
Flash forward to this March, 6 years later. I'm still married, have 2 more sons, working as a nurse on the nightshift. I'vd been having some trouble sleeping during the days, and this 1 particular day, I had actually slept the night before, but was way behind on sleep the few days before that. My oldest had a dentist appointment at 8AM. On the way home, I didn't feel particularly sleepy or anything, my blood sugar was fine- everything seemed fine. Then, the next thing I know I'm in the middle of an intersection w/this big truck coming right at us. My first thought was "why is this guy pulling in front of us?" (He was making a L turn) Then I looked up and saw that we were running through a red light. I managed not to hit him, but scared the crap out of my son, myself and the guy in the truck. We left actual skid marks on the road. Well, my first thought was to just get the Hell out of there, before someone thought I was a drunk driver or something. It didn't start sinking in until we were almost home. I had totally "blanked out". There was no warning, I hadn't fallen asleep, it was just Boom, there we were, like time skipped a beat.
I got pretty scared and upset. The fact that my son had been in the car w/ me was really freaking me out. I had practically forgotten about the EEG and everything from '03, but it all came back to me then. And also the memory of when I rear-ended a car on the highway, totalling my car, while 7 months pregnant w/ my oldest. (this would have been in '01, before the original EEG or anything) I wasn't really hurt, but did start to go into early labor, which they were able to stop at the hospital. The accident never really made sense to me, it was like, one second I'm driving along, the next second there's this car 10 feet in front of me. But it got pretty much written off as "distracted pregnant lady rear-ends someone, happens every day". I did get cited in the accident, but thank God, no one in the other car was hurt. And I was on a nasty stretch of highway, where there's practically an accident every day, so nobody thought much about it. I'll admit, it did nag at me, how the whole thing happened, but I was defensive and even a little embarrassed, I just wanted it to "go away". And it pretty much did. We paid the fine, got a new car, my son was born a couple months later. He had some serious complications at birth and in his first couple months, totally un-related to the accident. There was a time I thought we might lose him, so that was pretty much the only thing on my mind. The accident was all but forgotten.
Until that day last March. I let it all out to my PCP, almost like it was a confession. She pulled up the old EEG on her computer. Then proceeded to tell me I have epilepsy, I need to see a neurologist, and I can't drive for at least 6 months. Just like that. It was like someone pulled the rug out from under my feet. I'm practically a soccer mom here! I'm driving my kids somewhere at least a few times every day! Not to mention that my job is 35 miles away and I work the night shift! There's no public transportation around here either. Then I wasn't even sure if it was SAFE for me to work. My boss took me off the schedule until she got a letter from my PCP, which, thankfully, came in right away. It said I have absence seizures that wouldn't effect patient care, and it was safe to work. Yeah, if I could just GET THERE! My family depends on my income. My husbands job takes up a lot of time but doesn't pay nearly as well as mine.
So, of course, no neurologist can see me until late May at the earliest. I feel like I'm stuck in purgatory here. I'm not even sure I DO have epilepsy, and here's why-
-The EEG says it's in my temporal lobe- but little absence seizures aren't usually a symptom of TLE.
-From the research I've done, I guess it's very rare to have absence seizures in an adult, especially if not accompanied by other types of seizures.
- I've never had anything like a seizure besides these episodes, which are like 6 years apart. Neither my husband, nor anyone else has ever noticed me just staring of
into space for a few seconds ie: having absence seizures.
-Maybe I'm just a bad driver?
Or maybe I'm just in denial. Any thoughts?
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