Emily Barrett
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Hello! I'm Emily, and I think that I might have epilepsy.
A little background: I have schizoaffective disorder and Asperger's syndrome, and was born three months prematurely.
Also, I'm sorry if I use some vague words when talking about time. My memory is terrible and getting worse.
My earliest memory is rather funny, now that I think of it. I was standing in front of the bathroom sink, and it seemed very large. It didn't look very large; rather, I had a gut feeling that it loomed above me. Everything around me seemed bulbous and huge. Nothing felt real, and I was one layer away from direct contact with reality. I couldn't feel my head at all.
Growing up, I suffered from migraines. Patches of my vision would just disappear, the holes fringed by flickering phosphene fractals, and I'd feel ill. Then would come the headache, the headache that would make it feel as though my head had been split in two and that one side of it was being hit wih a sledgehammer. My face would go numb and flop down on one side as though I'd had anaesthetic at the dentist. Sometimes the headaches were so bad that I'd have to lie down in a darkened room for the day.
When I was about 15, around the time that I started to take serious psychiatric medications (Zyprexa and Valium, at first), I stopped having migraines - at least, I stopped having headaches. All of the other symptoms of migraine continued. My vision would break down, and it would get worse the more I tried to concentrate to see. Too much visual stimulus - tightly packed text, flashing images - would send me into freefall. I would tremble and my vision would flicker and I physically couldn't concentrate on any one thing.
One day, one or two months before my 17th birthday, I took a ridiculous amount of sertraline tablets. I think I took 2g sertraline. I was just messing about. I knew about serotonin syndrome, and thought that it would be interesting. I remember feeling very giggly and hypomanic as I did it, deeply peaceful afterwards, and then going to bed.
When I woke up, I was on the loo. TMI!
and I remembered nothing. I didn't know where I was and I didn't recognize my mother. After that, I fell unconscious again, and, when I awoke, I was in an ambulance.
It was explained to me that I'd had a tonic-clonic seizure as a result of serotonin syndrome. The paramedics commented that this was a surprising reaction to serotonin syndrome, and that I must have a low seizure threshold, but nothing more was thought of it. I thought that it was just the effects of the overdose. I soon went home, and got on with my life.
In early 2014, I started to take pseudoephedrine as a diet pill. I took it as recommended for a sniffy nose. Four or five days into my pseudoephedrine use, I was watching TV, and that's where my memories end. I woke up in an ambulance. I'd had a seizure, and my mother had called 999.
When I got to A&E, the doctor asked me if I'd been taking my anti-epileptic meds. I answered that, no, I didn't have epilepsy. The doctor looked confused and asked why I'd had a seizure. I said that I'd been taking pseudoephedrine, and he looked disbelieving. I think that he thought I'd been doing hard drugs. It was embarrassing.
I went to a concert in April. I went to three concerts in April, in fact. I love live music. At this one concert, during my favourite song, they used a strobe. I had to concentrate my vision on the shadowed floor in front of the speakers, as I found that I felt queasy and flickery if I looked at the light. At one point I thought that I would faint. It passed, though, and I enjoyed the night.
Throughout my life, I've had strong, uncanny, disquieting feelings of deja vu when presented with things that I rationally know are unfamiliar. Lately they've been almost daily. I thought that everyone had them, and that they were what everyone referred to as 'deja vu'. Earlier this year, though, I was reading an article about an epileptic, and I realized that I recognized the deja vu symptom.
I never thought I was epileptic, though, until last month. In February, I went into a psychiatric hospital following a psychotic break. In May, I was taken for an MRI and EEG. I never got the results back from the MRI, so I assume that they had been unremarkable. When I went for the EEG, however, they tested me with a strobe. I remember lying on the treatment couch, watching the light. My eyes kept rolling involuntarily. I saw a dark figure similar to those I saw following me in the months leading up to my psychotic break, but I tried to ignore it. I remember nothing after that, until I 'woke up' in the chair in the middle of the room, in filthy clothes. I had to be told two or three times that I'd had a seizure before I remembered it.
Now I'm convinced that I have epilepsy. Everything has marched inexorably into place. I can't write this off as a 'low seizure threshold'. I also believe that my brain is degrading with every piece of seizure activity, be it a tonic-clonic or a deja vu, and that's why my memory and intellect are degrading so rapidly. I'm scared, I really am. I want to get medicated. I'm seeing my GP on Monday, but it's about something else; my parents think I'm being a hypochondriac when I say that I think I have epilepsy. I'm hoping to sneak the epilepsy thing in somewhere and hope that the doctor takes an interest in it. Until then, I'm just waiting for the next time it breaks in my brain.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I've had several instances of complete memory loss. I put this down to psychotic dissociation, but it could be seizure-related. I was once out for long enough to manage to throw a chair at a teacher. Another time, I ordered a coffee whilst out.
A little background: I have schizoaffective disorder and Asperger's syndrome, and was born three months prematurely.
Also, I'm sorry if I use some vague words when talking about time. My memory is terrible and getting worse.
My earliest memory is rather funny, now that I think of it. I was standing in front of the bathroom sink, and it seemed very large. It didn't look very large; rather, I had a gut feeling that it loomed above me. Everything around me seemed bulbous and huge. Nothing felt real, and I was one layer away from direct contact with reality. I couldn't feel my head at all.
Growing up, I suffered from migraines. Patches of my vision would just disappear, the holes fringed by flickering phosphene fractals, and I'd feel ill. Then would come the headache, the headache that would make it feel as though my head had been split in two and that one side of it was being hit wih a sledgehammer. My face would go numb and flop down on one side as though I'd had anaesthetic at the dentist. Sometimes the headaches were so bad that I'd have to lie down in a darkened room for the day.
When I was about 15, around the time that I started to take serious psychiatric medications (Zyprexa and Valium, at first), I stopped having migraines - at least, I stopped having headaches. All of the other symptoms of migraine continued. My vision would break down, and it would get worse the more I tried to concentrate to see. Too much visual stimulus - tightly packed text, flashing images - would send me into freefall. I would tremble and my vision would flicker and I physically couldn't concentrate on any one thing.
One day, one or two months before my 17th birthday, I took a ridiculous amount of sertraline tablets. I think I took 2g sertraline. I was just messing about. I knew about serotonin syndrome, and thought that it would be interesting. I remember feeling very giggly and hypomanic as I did it, deeply peaceful afterwards, and then going to bed.
When I woke up, I was on the loo. TMI!
There was diarrhoea everywhere
It was explained to me that I'd had a tonic-clonic seizure as a result of serotonin syndrome. The paramedics commented that this was a surprising reaction to serotonin syndrome, and that I must have a low seizure threshold, but nothing more was thought of it. I thought that it was just the effects of the overdose. I soon went home, and got on with my life.
In early 2014, I started to take pseudoephedrine as a diet pill. I took it as recommended for a sniffy nose. Four or five days into my pseudoephedrine use, I was watching TV, and that's where my memories end. I woke up in an ambulance. I'd had a seizure, and my mother had called 999.
When I got to A&E, the doctor asked me if I'd been taking my anti-epileptic meds. I answered that, no, I didn't have epilepsy. The doctor looked confused and asked why I'd had a seizure. I said that I'd been taking pseudoephedrine, and he looked disbelieving. I think that he thought I'd been doing hard drugs. It was embarrassing.
I went to a concert in April. I went to three concerts in April, in fact. I love live music. At this one concert, during my favourite song, they used a strobe. I had to concentrate my vision on the shadowed floor in front of the speakers, as I found that I felt queasy and flickery if I looked at the light. At one point I thought that I would faint. It passed, though, and I enjoyed the night.
Throughout my life, I've had strong, uncanny, disquieting feelings of deja vu when presented with things that I rationally know are unfamiliar. Lately they've been almost daily. I thought that everyone had them, and that they were what everyone referred to as 'deja vu'. Earlier this year, though, I was reading an article about an epileptic, and I realized that I recognized the deja vu symptom.
I never thought I was epileptic, though, until last month. In February, I went into a psychiatric hospital following a psychotic break. In May, I was taken for an MRI and EEG. I never got the results back from the MRI, so I assume that they had been unremarkable. When I went for the EEG, however, they tested me with a strobe. I remember lying on the treatment couch, watching the light. My eyes kept rolling involuntarily. I saw a dark figure similar to those I saw following me in the months leading up to my psychotic break, but I tried to ignore it. I remember nothing after that, until I 'woke up' in the chair in the middle of the room, in filthy clothes. I had to be told two or three times that I'd had a seizure before I remembered it.
Now I'm convinced that I have epilepsy. Everything has marched inexorably into place. I can't write this off as a 'low seizure threshold'. I also believe that my brain is degrading with every piece of seizure activity, be it a tonic-clonic or a deja vu, and that's why my memory and intellect are degrading so rapidly. I'm scared, I really am. I want to get medicated. I'm seeing my GP on Monday, but it's about something else; my parents think I'm being a hypochondriac when I say that I think I have epilepsy. I'm hoping to sneak the epilepsy thing in somewhere and hope that the doctor takes an interest in it. Until then, I'm just waiting for the next time it breaks in my brain.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I've had several instances of complete memory loss. I put this down to psychotic dissociation, but it could be seizure-related. I was once out for long enough to manage to throw a chair at a teacher. Another time, I ordered a coffee whilst out.
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