Temporary reading difficulties

[juzzyk]

Anybody have any experiences, maybe seizure related, causing them to have trouble reading words or see letters scrambled? I'm wondering if this is a variation of having difficulty understanding speech which happened to me once.

Lately I've had some strange experiences similar to being dyslexic. Today I was assessing a student (on this occasion I was assessing for dyslexia, ironically), and I showed her a list of words saying, here is a list of nonsense words (which is what they looked like to me). I have two pages and thought this was the page of made up words, which was what it looked like. As she was reading them, about 30 seconds into watching her read, it was like the words changed and I could decipher them. Very strange experience. It was only temporary which makes me wonder if it was a seizure.

There've been a couple of other instances where the words on road signs have looked like something else and when I've looked again I can read it properly. I'm not sure if this is part of a visual type hallucination. I have temporal lobe epilepsy.

 

[N Sperlo]

What you're experiencing to me sounds pretty normal, actually. Then again, I am dyslexic. Do you have ADHD or any other learning difficulties? Is this maybe something you are just noticing? (I have a tendency to look at things from a skeptical angle by nature.)

I would like to learn more about the testing you do. There are around 100 types of dyslexia that are known, and I kind of what to know how I would do on a test.

 

[Cint]

juzzyk,

I also have TLE and occasionally have experienced these dyslexia-like symptoms. Sometimes when I'm reading, the words are scrambled for a second and when I blink, they appear normal again. It could be the TLE or it could possibly be the med(s).

Speech problems can also be a part of TLE and can happen during a simple partial seizure (which is actually an aura). It could also be hallucinatory problems that do go with TLE, especially if you've noticed it on more than one occasion. Speak with your neuro.

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_simplepartial

Psychic seizures:

>These seizures change how people think, feel, or experience things. They may have problems with memory, garbled speech, an inability to find the right word, or trouble understanding spoken or written language. They may suddenly feel emotions like fear, depression, or happiness with no outside reason.

 

[Matthew74]

When I started on Keppra I got right and left mixed up. I would play the piano (not an expert, mind you), but the right was doing what the left should be doing, etc. I would type letters out of order, then I couldn't tell what was wrong with it. Occasionally, I would switch around letters in a word when I would read it, and I would frequently switch words around in sentences. Strange stuff, never happened to me before. I got the worst of it over with in a few months, and It mostly went away in a year or so. Now for some, possibly unrelated, reason I get all of my i/e/y vowels mixed up.

Like Sperlo says, that's what having dyslexia is like. So I looked at it as a good opportunity to get to understand what it's like.

 

[C0urt]

when my blood sugar gets low i have problem processing things

 

[kirsten]

I don't have learning difficulties or ADHD. I do have temporal lobe epilepsy. I've been having these letter-scrambling issues for 20 years. I will directly switch numbers for one another, which amazes me considering I really don't think I'm dyslexic--I don't remember having these problems in school. In the beginning it was just numbers but I've started having problems with letters as well. BUT I find that touch typing is far more difficult for me during seizurish times. I sit down to type at a rate of knots, fully confident that I will hit the right letters and what will come out is letter salad. Another thing I was blaming on epilepsy ended up not being epilepsy related. I would skip lines while reading or read the same lines over--after an eye test I found out that was because of astigmatism, so all I needed was a pair of glasses to fix that one.

 

[C0urt]

similar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia

 

[kirsten]

Very interesting, Court. I thought dysgraphia was limited to the look of handwriting on the page. I guess that explains my typing problems.

 

[juzzyk]

Cint, that is exactly like it, sometimes I blink and it goes away. I have only noticed that since being on medication, but I think from what you are saying it is probably seizure related.

Sperlo, I never had this before but it does sound similar to dyslexia. It must be hard having that all the time. Is yours epilepsy related? I am trying not to read too much into it (pardon the pun). The preferred term for dyslexia now is reading disability although I tend not to like the word disability. For the diagnosis, the person has to perform significantly lower on a range of reading tests compared to what would be expected based on their IQ or ability level. I've been researching a bit and it seems there is a type of epilepsy called reading epilepsy, so I think there is a definite connection with language, reading and seizure activity.

Kirsten, I've noticed that with typing too. My typing used to be so fluent. My handwriting is absolutely terrible now.

Even though this is scary for me to have these challenges, I am glad to have a bit of an insight into what it must be like for people with dyslexia or another learning difficulty. It will help me empathise and understand them. When I told my son what happened when I was testing the girl, he said, 'her brainwaves were trying to communicate with you what it's like for her.' Now this might sound really crazy, but I often feel physically and emotionally what my clients are feeling so there could be something in that!

 

[N Sperlo]

I think I've learned as much as you in this thread, juzzyk.

When I read, my eyes jump around and I only read bits of words often time forgetting entire sentences.
It sounds like I have been tested in a similar fashion.

I can type at about 100 wpm and run computer programs often times without even looking at the screen or the keyboard. My handwriting has always been awful.

Not odd at all to feel physically and emotionally what clients are feeling. In the paranormal community, we call that being empathic. Empathic people can physically pick up on things such as the emotions of those around them.
Now they have to call us both crazy.

 

[privilegepops]

I must agree with everyone that temporary reading difficulties is somehow related to temporal lobe epilepsy. Upon thorough reading, I found out that this epilepsy maybe associated to symptoms such as visual hallucinations linked to other qualities of perception such as voices,and emotions.

 

[kirsten]

I found out that this epilepsy maybe associated to symptoms such as visual hallucinations linked to other qualities of perception such as voices,and emotions.

Privilege, I'm really interested in what you're saying here but I'm not sure I'm hearing all of what you've found out. Can you please say more about this?