Auras

Do you have an aura before a seizure?

  • Always

    Votes: 43 33.6%

  • Most of the time

    Votes: 50 39.1%

  • Rarely

    Votes: 19 14.8%

  • Never

    Votes: 16 12.5%
  • Total voters
    128

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Joyful said:
I always have auras before my seizures, however they will usually start as a "feeling" - very small, almost not even there. Then that feeling grows stronger and more intense until it comes out as a full blown seizure.

I never new that auras were actually seizures b/4 I joined this forum - good to know.
It explains alot - my auras feel just like I'm having a seizure, except my body isn't losing control. As the aura intensifies, I begin to lose control (have a seizure)
It's kinda' hard to describe - it's like a wave of confusion and helplesness washes over me
then I get goose bumps on my arms & legs.
Sometimes I will go an entire day just having auras, and then by suppertime the big seizures begin.
This usually happens a few times a month.
So, if I'm having auras alot, should I mention this to my neuro. ? I guess so if they are actually seizures.
Thanks. :)
Click to expand...

My neuro said she wants to know about every partial seizure (aura) no matter how short. I don't usually bother to tell her about every short little one until I see her or I would be calling all the time.
 
I'm not sure if I have had auras. I have had occasions at work where I am walking down a hallway and all of a sudden I lose my feeling my balance going. I have also had the sensation almost like I was walking on air. I haven't had a quote seizure unquote since my grand mal in twelve years. Many situations "that didn't feel right". I usually sat down or stood by a wall for a second or two while it passed.

My family doctor is away now and we have a temporary doctor filling in for her. I'm waiting until she returns to discuss it. I haven't told my wife as she would worry too much. Enough stressors in my house hold. My wife has one functioning lung, a teenager and a 12 yr old with three different mental health diagnosis that makes him verbally abusive and unpredicable.

I am on 150mg twice a day of Lamontrigine. My doctor has it on my file to increase to 300mg twice a day if I start having issues with reoccurances.
 
I would describe my auras to be as if I lose consciousness for a fraction of a fraction of a second. It's so fast that it doesn't even feel like it happened, its just a quick jolt. Plus a kind of out of body feeling, but when I get the jolt I know its coming.

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I have also had the feeling like losing my balance and not quite like I'm losing consciousness. Its sort of like "whoa that didn't feel right" then it is gone as quick as it came.
 
Exactly. The only reason I describe it like losing consciousness for a fraction of a second is because to me it's like a blink, but even faster than that. I don't really feel like I lost consciousness but I know something happened for that fraction of a second.
 
I almost feel like keeping these little "episodes" to myself so nobody makes a bigger deal out of it than it seems. But I did that with all the absence seizures, whatever they're officially called, and then I had my "generalized tonic-clonic seizure". My wife told me from start to finish when I started to gain some sense regaining consciousness was probably about 20 minutes. I think I probably lost a few days worth of memory. I don't remember the ride to the hospital, the cat scan or moving to the base hospital as I was military at the time.
 
I know what you mean about keeping it to yourself. I've never had memory loss last that long, must be scary. I've only ever had tonic clinic but its been 2 years since my last. I was thinking about how I described the aura. Maybe a glitch or short circuit describes it better.

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I had auras every time when first diagnosed in 1986, and they used to really shake me up, including my visions of an old guy in a flat cap, in a 1930's cobbled street, pulling his collar up, and peering over it at me, I haven't seen him in years. When I was prescribed Oxcarbazepine I stopped having auras for many years. I now have a warning a few days before the start of my next cluster of Atonic seizures, I get "flashes" brief memories of dreams, places, people, scenarios from life, and I also momentarily fail to recognise my surroundings, or what I'm doing there, or where I'm going, terrifying!! These experiences have only recently started over the last year or so. Whenever I give a talk on my epilepsy, I am always asked, do I get any warning? I don't anymore, but I just know when I'm in for a cluster, and of course, stress is the biggest influence on TLE. x
 
That's kind of fascinating, but it sounds scary to experience. I've had that racing memory feeling once when I was trying to fall asleep. It freaked me out but I haven't had that since. And there was no seizure afterward. I like hearing about everyone's experience with auras. And I really enjoy talking about it with people that can relate!

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Hi Christine I hope that you get as much out of this wonderful website as I have over the last nearly eight years, I just wish we'd had the information so easily available when I was diagnosed in 1986. You are so right in what you said about how we all understand each other on here don't we, it's virtually impossible to describe some of my past experiences to people, I've taken my clothes off in public twice, a few years ago now, but I do remember both occasions very well. My family actually thought I was psychic when I first starting having seizures, I used to have some strange experiences.
Welcome to CWE, you'll love it, and I'm sure we'll catch up again soon.
Love Elaine x
 
I guess one of the things my wife has worried about for me is the amount of sleep and stress. I usually go to bed around 11:30pm and I'm up for work around 5:25am. Stress, well I have a teenager (as normal as a teenager can be) and a twelve year old that has ADHD, Tourettes and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. He can be a ticking time bomb at times. He moves furnture and can be very verbally abusive when he has his meltdowns. Not sure if its around his heavier moments that I run into my small auras?
 
If like me, you have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, the mood and emotional department of our brain is based there, in our Limbic System, and it was stress that first triggered my seizures when my parents divorced, even though it was forceps at birth that caused the actual brain injury, so any problems, worries, anxiety etc is not good for us, I can sometimes feel a seizure brewing up if I get upset by things.
 
It's more like what drugs am I not on right now! Keppra, Zonisamide, Trileptal, Pregablin, Lacosamide, and Clobazam for cluster seizures, I do not like having all this cr--p floating around my system, and after two lots of brain surgery, although my seizures are not as regular as they were when they were simple and complex partial seizures, they are now Atonic seizures, and I have them in approx 4-5 week intervals, and can have between 2 and 10 in a cluster. So, it still rules my life, but Temporal Lobe is known to be the most difficult to control, just my luck eh?
How are you doing, I hope you are getting as much from CWE as I have over the last eight years, it's great.
 
I didn't realize how many different types of auras we all experience.
I have auras before a t/c. I have this disconnected, out of body feeling and auditory hallucinations. I can't speak but I have been able let my husband know once when I felt one coming on. A few times I've been able to stop a t/c from happening if I can redirect my thinking, or by moving or concentrating on something else when I first feel the aura starting. Once the aura goes too far there's no turning back.
Since starting on Keppra my auras are different, less intense, but happen often and in clusters. I have a lot of simple partials and the occasional complex partial.
We are all the same but different.
 
cawhitern said:
I didn't realize how many different types of auras we all experience.
I have auras before a t/c. I have this disconnected, out of body feeling and auditory hallucinations. I can't speak but I have been able let my husband know once when I felt one coming on. A few times I've been able to stop a t/c from happening if I can redirect my thinking, or by moving or concentrating on something else when I first feel the aura starting. Once the aura goes too far there's no turning back.
Since starting on Keppra my auras are different, less intense, but happen often and in clusters. I have a lot of simple partials and the occasional complex partial.
We are all the same but different.
Click to expand...

I have only experienced SP but I have been able to stop them if I get up and get moving quickly. If I just sit there and let myself be pulled into it, I'm in trouble.

I am having a SP right now. I am smelling dust but I am too sick to get up and do much. I have a chest cold. I'm pretty worried about it since I also have mild COPD. (I quit smoking 10 years ago but not soon enough) I try to stay healthy and this is as sick as I have been since I found out I have COPD, never had more than a head cold.
 
I also think this feeling of all my skin being on fire is a SP and I am experiencing that right now too.
 
I would say tell your neuro, the reason they are called partials, is because only parts of our brains are experiencing abnormal electrical activity, but, it's quite common for this to turn to what's called secondary generalised, then the trouble starts, the electrical storm, for want of a better description, will spread to the rest of the brain. Since I started taking Trileptal/ Oxcarbazepine many years ago, I rarely have the aura anymore, which is a symptom of the seizure itself. I have just been reading about another "warning" prodome, I would say that I am subject to this more than anything else, It describes, mental heaviness, depression, sometimes elation and excitement, also lots of activity, my mood swings are amazing!
 
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