inducing?

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It's been a little while since I posted, but so far as I know I have been doing well on the Lamictal 100mg 2x daily for the last six months give or take. I have had the typical side effects of no motivation, sleeping 10-12 hrs a day, poor memory, and most of all for me, more and more depressed. I feel more like the depression stems from not being able to work at the moment or drive according to state laws. I also feel some of it is the unknown and paranoia of having another seizure at home alone and not knowing what happens over the several hours that I lose. Which brings me to my point, I have searched the forum to seek any similar posts and have come up empty. I am curious about being able to or how to induce a seizure around family so someone can tell my doctor what they observed? I don't know of any personal triggers and I don't want to have one necessarily but my doctor seems to think I have more nocturnal than the big day time ones of missing time, "wandering", and confusion for hours on end. Any suggestions?
 
Why would you want to induce a seizure?! Just set up a video camera in your room(s) to record any nocturnal ones you have, and that should be all you need to show your family and doctor.
 
I have thought about the camera for night time episodes and keep a journal of nights I bite my tongue, wake up sore and often with a bad headache, and my jaw hurting. The problem is the day time ones, I don't feel my doctor is really listening to the fact that those are the ones that concern me due to the fact that I have injured myself and wandered off with a missing segment of time around 4 hours each episode. I am not really worried about the ones at night (yet), that's why I feel I need to induce one of the ones I have during the day. It's not that I want to induce, I just don't know how to explain what I don't know and no one has witnessed? I have even asked neighbors if they have seen me wandering around the neighborhood and no one has said yes.
 
Yeah, I wanted to have mine induced as well (so I could have the VA/Air Force track it better). Just they have never been able to. I have only nocturnal ones (which I need to setup a video cam still...). I don't know my triggers either, but from a very knowledgeable VA neuro told me is usually it's stress and sleep dev. Which military members are use to and it's almost natural for us (in my opinion) to look at stress differently and also not realize how much of poor sleep we tend to get (at least me). I hear a dump truck a mile away 4am in the morning picking up a dumpster echoing that wakes me up.
I say look up some more info, try and talk to a different doctor and figure it out from there. My best bud said I probably stress in my subconscious (sleep) and can't control that. Good reasoning for why I have mine at night, usually around a wake cycle.... as far as I can tell. I wake up with time lost and all the other fun of a grand mal.

Hopefully you are getting/got retirement. I'm fighting for mine still after they didn't give me anything, and I have 2 kids by myself. Hooray life.
I think it's just because I'm to awesome is why I have them. ;)
 
Wanting to induce a seizure? I certainly do suggest going to your doctor or neurologist for getting that done. I just know of grand mal seizures I have had in the past, one of which I was sent to hospital after falling down a flight of stairs and the other... don't remember all that took place on this one - no stairs though :) - but I do know it was one of two pushing stones that got my neurologist to have me sent in for my first brain surgery. Best step for getting seizures induced is via a professional. While I know of several ways they go about inducing the seizures in the hospital, I would feel terrible telling one how they go about it and then something bad happening.

Go to your doctor and/or neurologist, it may well be the best choice. I do hope things get better for you in this area.
 
Oh yea, I am USMC vet as well, though I was 80-88, many years back :rolleyes:
 
Thanks cadsgj, and 80-88 isn't long ago. I'm 88-93, gulf war but no service related and the VA appears to be doing the in/out treat/dismiss without acknowledging anything I tell them.
Thanks also to TheSchuck, I went through the typical tests through the VA of MRI, CT, "sleep deprived" (as they didn't tell me it was deprived, I went in fully rested) EEG, and I had "no response" to the led light strobe. And I agree it would be better if it were to happen under doctor supervision, I just want some answers!
Maybe the military in me, I don't do well with unknown variables. Talk about stress induced, but I have had stress and anxiety all my life.
Thanks though for the support and veteran understanding guys.
 
If you (or your doc) strongly suspect nocturnal seizures, you might inquire about having a sleep study or overnight vEEG done.
 
I wouldn't recommend inducing a seizure but doing what Bernard suggested. I'm just remembering my own recent seizure and thinking on the fact that if no one had been home I would have probably wandered out in the street or something, I wasn't coherent at all. Also, any tonic clonic can end up with serious ramifications. Video cameras and perhaps switching your neurologist? I'm not sure what viable options are open to you right now, but definitely try those. Definitely best of luck. An ex of mine had fun dealing with the VA when a mystery illness crept up (it disappeared not too long afterward, however). I hope you get where you need to go with it and soon!
 
I do understand where you're coming from, as I've wondered the same thing. Inducing one on your own could have some bad consequences. I would definitely ask the doc/neurologist to have a sleep study or vEEG done.
 
It is a good idea to keep a journal of what went on during the seizure (if you know) and what happened after. This helps your neuro understand things better.

Now when I have a seizure I my loose a few minutes, maybe an hour at most, of memory that happened before it. But at first it was a few hours to a few days. I know what that's like!

Do you have a wife, friend or family member that you could spend a good deal of time with? Having them stay at your house or you at theirs? Even have them sleep in the same bed with you at night if you'd feel comfortable doing that. By doing this they might be able to see you have a seizure and tell you what you do. I was doing this in general just because my family didn't want me to be alone because of what my seizures were like at first so they got to see me have a lot of them.
 
Thanks valeriedl, the journal I have been keeping really doesn't seem to be helpful at least to me. I'm also only able to do it the day after a suspected night time event and only because I bite my tongue even wearing a mouth guard! So with the ones at night I don't know if I am having more on nights I don't bite my tongue and unfortunately I do live alone. Not married, friends work and have own families, and my family that is near, I know they are concerned and I love them but they aren't the most reliable dysfunctional group I know to stay with me or I them. Again though, for me the night time ones don't bother me as much as the day time ones. As far as I know I am not wandering around my neighborhood in the middle of the night, but I am during the day time ones. I'm not talking about just losing time during, it's also before and after. My first I lost about five hours during as best as I can figure, but I don't remember an hour long conversation I had with a friend before it happened and I don't remember calling anyone or how I got to the E.R. afterwards either so all total I lost from about 4pm till 10pm? I'd rather be in combat than deal with this crap. I do thank you all for your input, I suppose I will try to get in touch with my VA neurologist and see what we can do.
 
Valeriedl, I read this idea of doing a journal, I believe came from you via another post, and I personally have been doing one in detail since the end of June. Later this month when I go see my neurologist I have a basic list via seizures in my journal and a detailed one; me, one of those guys with not so great short term memory, this is going to make me feel very good when asked just what my problems have been :rolleyes:
 
Yeah, a journal helps.
I joined a bit later in life and later than you 2 (I was almost 27 from 06 to 12).
I agree I was searching for answers also after it started. To pin point the cause would almost at times be like inventing a modern day teleporter. There are some underlining causes/could cause a seizure type of things that are believed to trigger them. Differences depend on the patient.
Sorry typing fast as I have to get the kids to the bus stop.
 
I have also been keeping a pretty detailed journal of my seizure activity as well just so that I can keep track and I didn't realize how many times I had woken with a headache or I had one and I had written it off as a funny turn or just wrote off the sleepiness and headache as allergies or not getting enough sleep or too much or something else entirely. I'm the master of deceiving myself and I've done so for quite a while so this journal has been forcing me otherwise.

I also like the idea of monitoring you while you sleep with a camera. If that's a viable option then I'd go with that and, yes, a sleep study. Definitely can help. I don't know what's been offered to you or what you can get but anything in a safe manner. I'd hate for you to end up in the ER trying to induce them. I wish you the best of luck!
 
sassi said:
I have also been keeping a pretty detailed journal of my seizure activity as well just so that I can keep track and I didn't realize how many times I had woken with a headache or I had one and I had written it off as a funny turn or just wrote off the sleepiness and headache as allergies or not getting enough sleep or too much or something else entirely. I'm the master of deceiving myself and I've done so for quite a while so this journal has been forcing me otherwise.
Click to expand...

As I said I'll loose some time before I have a seizure. If I loose that time I don't know if I had an aura or not to tell me that a seizure was on it's way. If his happens then I don't know that I'd had that seizure. Usually too if there was no one there to see me have that seizure, it doesn't matter if I lost time or not, I don't know that I've had one. But if I have a bad headache then I know that I probably had a seizure.
 
For me it's groggy with some soreness (meds have taken that away a bit as it's not making them the massive 3-5 mins grand mals that was believed to originally be happening) mixed with dazed/confused, but I count that towards lack of sleep (even though I wasn't having lack of sleep in that range...I think).
I wake up not knowing I had them. I had to look back in the past and see where they stated with realizing that feeling more so. I guess I just need to get off my butt and put the IR camera on the list of things to get and set it up (new toy for an IT techie... no big stretch there haha).

Answers come with time. Research/read. Document. Monitor. It's your life and I don't know about you, but with 2 kids on my own, I want to make sure I'm taking care of myself to take care of them. Leave it up to a controlled environment to "induce." Having to wake up after one of mine and go into work OR when I was enlisted report for duty. People thought I didn't sleep and was on drugs or something.
 
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