Wobblez, if you can feel yourself going into one then it sounds like a simple partial followed by a complex partial. And no, I wouldn't say a complex is decided on purely because of duration, it's more regarding what happens to you during the seizure. From all the literature I've ever read on complex partials you will come out of it either completely unaware that it happened, or almost completely unaware, and the same for the events that took place during it.
But I can tell you with 110% certainty that SIMPLE partials do not last 33 minutes. When you say you didn't know if it qualified as a complex, I'm wondering if maybe you're having a different type of seizure altogether? The BEST thing ever is that you're on board to see an epileptologist, they are so much more educated than a neurologist and know their seizures, meds, etc. like the back of their hands.
As for me with predictability I would say my 'luck' with that is purely because I've had them for so long and I too, know them like the back of my hand. 18 years is so long, too bloody long, and as 3 of the 5 tonic-clonics I've had have been the result of a simple partial, the only way I guess I could say I 'might know' a tonic-clonic is coming on is as i said before, the simple lasts for a minute or two. That is NOT normal. But no, one does not feel themselves going into a big one; one minute you're doing whatever you're doing and the next you wake up in a daze either wondering WTF just happened or going, 'oh great, another one, here we go again.'
I'm only 33, I just don't want to know what my future holds if I don't do something about it. Right now it's a toss up between doubling the lamotrigine (just started three days ago) or looking at brain surgery (hippocampal sclerosis). C'MON lamotrigine!!!
I'm glad to hear the drug, at least at one time, worked for you too... best of luck with the upcoming appt!!