Can anyone else feel when they have an absence seizure?

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TomM

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Whenever someone has seen me have an absence seizure they say I've "blanked out" or that it looked like the lights were on but no one was home. It seems like most people describe their absence seizures as, basically, brief periods of unconsciousness like mini-black outs. For me though, I can actually feel a physical sensation when they occur. It's not that I black out it's that my mind goes somewhere else than the reality in front of me. I feel a sensation that's similar to that feeling you get when you stand up too quickly and the feeling you get if you're leaning back in your chair and almost fall over but catch yourself. It's like a rushing sensation and where my mind goes is to focus so that I can stop that rushing sensation because if it continues I'll have a seizure. Does anyone else feel something when they have an absence seizure?
 
When I have seizures that I black out during I don't know that I've had them. I'll sometimes get the feelings that you described but I usually don't remember if I did have them because I don't remember things that happened before and during the seizure.

Really the only way that I know that I may have had a seizure when there is no one there to see it happen is the headache that I'll have after it. I'll still have the headaches but now I'm not getting the headaches after every seizure like I used too. So I know I'm having seizures that I didn't know happened.
 
Thanks, are you talking about when you have grand mal seizures or absence seizures?
 
I usually only have one grand mal a year and pretty much don't know anything that happens before, during and after the seizure. Also my memory is pretty bad, after about 6 months things start to fade away so I really don't remember if I did get them or not. Those things happen when I have absence seizures.
 
I'm totally aware when I have a partial seizure, I think my concept of time and actual control of my body is lacking, but I know I'm having a seizure and can feel when one is coming.
 
I usually don't know i had one unless some tells me i had one
 
Yes Tom,
I can relate to what your saying,someone will say your having an absence seizure but i will be like,i know.I can feel the sensation in my head more vividly than an aura before a tonic.Although im lucky in that with my absence seizures,if im at home i just go to bed and i can sleep them off.

ps-Welcome to CWE.
 
I get a weird feeling. Hard to explain, but kinda like a spinning feeling and then I just stare off while I have these feeling I can still do somethings with my hands. Like repetitive actions.
 
Crash said:
Yes Tom,
I can relate to what your saying,someone will say your having an absence seizure but i will be like,i know.I can feel the sensation in my head more vividly than an aura before a tonic.Although im lucky in that with my absence seizures,if im at home i just go to bed and i can sleep them off.

ps-Welcome to CWE.
Click to expand...

My husband can usually tell when I'm going to have a seizure. He says "I get this look", not really sure what he means but 9 times out of 10 he's right.

Also when he tells me that I'm going to have a seizure then I'll realize that I'm having those pre-seizure feelings. I didn't realize that I was having them alot of times though until he told me that I might be having a seizure coming on.
 
I don't know. I have heard you can't tell when you have a seizure, and I can't tell (that I know of) when I have a tonic-clonic, until I wake up...
but.. since I was diagnosed I've tried to learn about different seizure types and try to pay attention to my actions, and I've had a similar sensation, and I've had it a long time, longer than being diagnosed...
I might describe it like a sensation of being asleep, a light sleep where I'm able to tell someone is trying to gently wake me up, or my alarm volume is low, but I'm not pulled up out of sleep completely...
and thinking of this type of consciousness as a well, a vertical tunnel, where the ground is consciousness and the bottom of the well is sleep, coming up out of the tunnel from below is the sensation like waking ... there is a similar "tunnel" sensation I experience but it's like lowering down into the tunnel-consciousness (instead of coming up out of it)
but this sensation is NOT like falling asleep - it's more like exchanging consciousness-states
being tugged out of sleep has a dread associated with it - my body/mind not wanting to leave the comfort of sleep
the "absence" periods I associate also have a dread associated with them, and this feels like a same type of sleep-dread
but it's like I know where I WAS when dipping into the absence state - during the sleep state, I don't know where I WAS so much. There may be some grasp that I was asleep, and "let me go back to sleep" eventually, but my mind comes from an uncertain state when I'm waking from sleep.
When I dip into the absence state I know where I "WAS" and continue to maintain this level of awareness, but I know I'm not "there" anymore.
The other thing is that often this absence-dip sensation feels GOOD.
It's not like the goosebump ASMR type of thinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response (a term I just recently learned) which I associate with a different sensation.

But during my absence periods I have an awareness, a sensation of HERE vs. WAS, a dread to pull up out of the sensation...
another thing is, I've tried to focus on an ability to control my mind-state when I'm in my absence period, to be able to pull myself up and out on my own free will, and... I'm not certain about that. Sometimes it feels like I CAN have control over it, for one, by defining and overcoming that dread feeling, but also I'm not really sure if I'm not controlling it, but just fleshing out my level of awareness during the periods, which then just resolve themselves as I'm trying to pay attention to my level of capacity.

for me it's hard to say
if they are absence seizures then I have seizures a lot more often than I thought - and have had them much longer than my diagnosis - and then maybe due to a few different circumstances (drinking and a few injuries) they evolved into tonic-clonics around 4 years ago, or maybe just due to the course of action for my epilepsy I evolved into having tonic-clonics.
I'm trying to quit blaming myself. Self-blame does no good.

and apparently (thanks to my gf noticing, initially) I have sleep seizures too (and thanks to waking up in pain, brain mush and a wet bed after my last one (I slept alone during that one) - the bed-wetting was a new one for me, although waking up in pain and confusion may have been going on a while, come to think of it - and maybe I over-blamed my alcoholism for a few things that may have been seizure related?)

where's the EEG iPhone app I can use at home?
:? :) :? :) :?
 
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TomM said:
Whenever someone has seen me have an absence seizure they say I've "blanked out" or that it looked like the lights were on but no one was home. It seems like most people describe their absence seizures as, basically, brief periods of unconsciousness like mini-black outs. For me though, I can actually feel a physical sensation when they occur. It's not that I black out it's that my mind goes somewhere else than the reality in front of me. I feel a sensation that's similar to that feeling you get when you stand up too quickly and the feeling you get if you're leaning back in your chair and almost fall over but catch yourself. It's like a rushing sensation and where my mind goes is to focus so that I can stop that rushing sensation because if it continues I'll have a seizure. Does anyone else feel something when they have an absence seizure?
Click to expand...

yes i can understand as i feel like that too. i dont have mini blackouts either , just look like as u say ' no one is home' . I used to sit down , usually on the floor, until it passed. My parents thought i was having dizzy spells as they didnt know much about epilepsy. Since i got diagnosed and am on lamictal im pleased to say that ive been seizure free for approx 12 years now.
 
My daughter Anna has had only absence seizures since being on medication, and describes them as feeling like her auras, but "more intense". She is unaware of her surroundings during them, so it is a feeling of blanking-out for 10-15 seconds.

Just spoke with my 65-year-old aunt today (Anna's great-aunt) who says that her husband has been noticing her having 10-15 second staring spells where she does not respond to what he says, or even his hand waving in her face. She says she is not aware of anything at all, but will try to keep track of them from now on. It sounds almost identical to the absence seizures that Anna has. Interesting to wonder now if there is some kind of link, or if a great-aunt is too distantly related (also would be a case of late onset epilepsy, vs. adolescent onset).
 
I think it still could be in the family and have to do with Anna having it. It sounds like it would anyway.
 
I feel a similar sensation. I suddenly think im somewhere im not or talking to someone im not etc and so i might be having a normal conversation with a friend about football and next thing i think that im in the middle of a shop buying chocolate. so i start trying to find money or something like that. lol.
it can be embarassing.
other times i just shut off for a few seconds.
And thats only the absence seizures..
 
The aura I get, if I get one, is kind of a trip. The sound in the area goes underwater and the horizon starts to tip off level. I then get the feeling like I've been here before and I start having some recall of nightmares. Things I see, like trees or buildings, turn into objects or people I feel I know from nightmares or dreams. A huge rush of fear washes over me as I continue to lose the horizon. Breathing gets kinda short and I can feel a tense muscle contraction over my entire body. When I come out of it, I feel as though I've been sleeping heavily and cannot remember things for a short period of time.

The sad thing is I'm still trying to find a trigger so I can have some sense of control over these things. My frequency is 1 or 2 every 3-4 years. Just enough to keep me from driving.
 
good questions, because I dont know either. A co worker said, I stare off and look like a zombie. I think, when having a simple partial, i hear all, see all, but cant respond, wanting to, its like the opposite of sleep apnea, instead im wide awake....hmmmm, new term: "Awake Apnea"?
 
omg, think somthin is happen to me now,
just was 6 feet under, feeling like had the universe on my shoulders
tears runnin down my face, angry and sad
now, feeling, heavy, limbs, mainly arms and wrist
and lethargic, taking big breaths
but emotionally, happy???

oh chit!

nervous, anxious

abotu a minute, hmmm
maybe anxiety?

wow,

been seeing colors all day, (red rectangles and white circles).

left arm trippin
gonna hit submit,be back later
 
Oh Snap Maryltyme! I hope you are okay.
That sounds like the beginning of how I feel during one. Lots of emotion and huge amounts of pressure.
Take the afternoon off. Rest. Be good to yourself.
 
dont know how long it lasted, it seemed like a very long time. I only took half medicine for last 2 days, could be problem? maybe just nerves, i dont know. I feel better now, tired as all you know what. feels like ive been working in the hot sun all day. i dont know, not sure it was a little different than anything ive ever experience before, happid really fast, i mean, boom, bam it was there, made stomach flip you know. nerves, tention, i was a little up set to start, perhaps thats what it was
 
I have absence/complex seizures. Mine can last up to 90 sec- 2 min. If I'm doing something (walking) I keep walking but then "come to" and think "where as I going? How did i get here?" At times I manage to slur out to mum, dad, or my brother that I'm having one and they make sure I dont wander or they direct/guide me to a bed (I want to sleep after I've had one). I dont get any warning. I get a cold feeling in my stomache/chest and then I "vague out"...and freak onlookers out, who dont know what I'm doing
 
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