Hi all,
I'll try to make a very long story short. I'm a 60 year old male from Durban South Africa, originally from Glasgow Scotland.
Five years ago I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, after years of complaining to my gp of extreme tiredness during the day. Got so bad my wife prevented me from driving into a bridge one day. Have been on cpap ever since.
Not long after this diagnosis, I was sitting at my desk when I felt a punch in the stomach, then a flushing up to my head, heart doing summersaults, excessive sweating at the back of my head, yawning then I fell asleep. This has continued since then.
I have been to two neurologists, two cardiologists a specialist physician to no avail. EEG showed nothing. One neurologist told me it is psychsomatic, so I went back to my gp and told him I just want my life back, so if it's psychosomatic, I want to see a psychiatrist.
Sitting in front of the shrink, I told him what happens to me. His first reaction was that he thinks it's temporal lobe epilepsy. He put me on Tegratol, and took me slowly up to 1000mg/day. This stopped the episodes.
I was still dubious about the diagnosis, after all, both the obstructive sleep apnea and temporal lobe epilepsy diagnoses were both made when I was 55 years old. This week, the doubts have been overcome.
Last Wednesday night, I took the last of my medication and asked my wife to re-order from the pharmacist. On Thursday, I forgot to pick it up after work. On Friday, my wife went and picked it up. So, I didn't have any Tegratol from Wednesday night until Friday night. By then I was trembling as I did all weekend. I went to work on Monday but had to go home. On Tuesday, I had an episode and fell asleep at my desk. I had to be taken home. I had another episode on Wednesday night - so bad it felt like I was going to die. I'll go back to work on Monday.
My thought process and short term memory suffers after each episode.
The other thing is, both hands now have a tick - not sure how to else describe it. If my tea cup is too full, when it, 'ticks,' I spill some of the tea.
By the way, when I asked the psychiatrist why I got this at my age, he said that the temporal lobes are very susceptible to damage from the continual hypoxic episodes of the sleep apnea.
Does any of this make sense?
I'll try to make a very long story short. I'm a 60 year old male from Durban South Africa, originally from Glasgow Scotland.
Five years ago I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, after years of complaining to my gp of extreme tiredness during the day. Got so bad my wife prevented me from driving into a bridge one day. Have been on cpap ever since.
Not long after this diagnosis, I was sitting at my desk when I felt a punch in the stomach, then a flushing up to my head, heart doing summersaults, excessive sweating at the back of my head, yawning then I fell asleep. This has continued since then.
I have been to two neurologists, two cardiologists a specialist physician to no avail. EEG showed nothing. One neurologist told me it is psychsomatic, so I went back to my gp and told him I just want my life back, so if it's psychosomatic, I want to see a psychiatrist.
Sitting in front of the shrink, I told him what happens to me. His first reaction was that he thinks it's temporal lobe epilepsy. He put me on Tegratol, and took me slowly up to 1000mg/day. This stopped the episodes.
I was still dubious about the diagnosis, after all, both the obstructive sleep apnea and temporal lobe epilepsy diagnoses were both made when I was 55 years old. This week, the doubts have been overcome.
Last Wednesday night, I took the last of my medication and asked my wife to re-order from the pharmacist. On Thursday, I forgot to pick it up after work. On Friday, my wife went and picked it up. So, I didn't have any Tegratol from Wednesday night until Friday night. By then I was trembling as I did all weekend. I went to work on Monday but had to go home. On Tuesday, I had an episode and fell asleep at my desk. I had to be taken home. I had another episode on Wednesday night - so bad it felt like I was going to die. I'll go back to work on Monday.
My thought process and short term memory suffers after each episode.
The other thing is, both hands now have a tick - not sure how to else describe it. If my tea cup is too full, when it, 'ticks,' I spill some of the tea.
By the way, when I asked the psychiatrist why I got this at my age, he said that the temporal lobes are very susceptible to damage from the continual hypoxic episodes of the sleep apnea.
Does any of this make sense?
