NEE(Non-epileptic episodes)

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acshuman

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I saw something happen last Friday that I had never seen before and never knew existed!
A person who was speaking at an EFMN(Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota) had a NEE. The person suddenly collapsed down to the floor just the way a person who is having a seizure would. The part I didn't understand w/o some explanation was that this person did not have an epileptic seizure! What members of CWE know about someone who has this kind of problem?
It was really interesting to google 'Non-Epileptic Episodes' and read about the explanations of how this happens for people.
I would think that NEE could very easily be mistaken by someone for an Epileptic Seizure!
Anybody have any thoughts about this? :idea:

acshuman
 
acshuman: It is extremely common for someone to be misdiagnosed and told they have epilepsy when they have some other condition, and it is common to be misdiagnose as having some other condition when in fact they do have epilepsy. Just go to Google Scholar and type in: "Epilepsy Imitators". You'll get a whole range of conditions that can cause episodes that may look like seizures but are not, including (but by no means limited to) falling/fainting due to orthostatic hypotension, paroxysmal dyskinesia, tics, and dystonia attack.
 
I'm curious to know how it was determined that the speaker wasn't having an epileptic event? As masterjen pointed out, there are many conditions that mimic symptoms of epilepsy, but given the context, an epileptic seizure would be the first thing to come to mind...

A condition often discussed at CWE is Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, in which seizure-like symptoms are caused by emotional stress. It can sometimes be tough to diagnose, and is sometimes mistakenly applied to people with epilepsy who have negative EEGS.
 
Condition Known

The speaker's condition was known to the people from EFMN(Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota). Because of this knowledge no one was worried about what happened. Some of these people had seen what happened when the speaker had an episode like this, so they were never worried about what to do and what NOT to do!
This was something that was new to many of the 200+ people at the fund-raiser, so there were quite a few gasps when the speaker first collapsed.

acshuman
 
I'm curious to know how it was determined that the speaker wasn't having an epileptic event? As masterjen pointed out, there are many conditions that mimic symptoms of epilepsy, but given the context, an epileptic seizure would be the first thing to come to mind...

A condition often discussed at CWE is Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, in which seizure-like symptoms are caused by emotional stress. It can sometimes be tough to diagnose, and is sometimes mistakenly applied to people with epilepsy who have negative EEGS.

I think I've seen a psychogenic non epileptic seizure before. This girl I knew out of nowhere collapsed, was shaking and was crying during it (like crying out loud). It was only a few seconds but it was enough to scare everyone. Afterwards, she was talking and eating pizza a few minutes later like nothing happened. She told us that she has severe anxiety and has "severe panic attacks" a week after that. I'm air quoting because it looked just like a seizure and I've never seen a panic attack like that before.

Not sure what was the cause of the speaker's event, but:
-eyes closed during the episode
-ictal crying
-more so trembling movements than clonic
-sudden start and stop
-movement in limbs not "together" (like asynchronous basically)
is more likely PNES than epilepsy (this doesn't mean that this can't happen in epilepsy but it's rare and this is common in PNES)

This is a long list on many imitators of epilepsy.
 
I think I've seen a psychogenic non epileptic seizure before.
Not sure what was the cause of the speaker's event, but:
-eyes closed during the episode
-ictal crying
-more so trembling movements than clonic
-sudden start and stop
-movement in limbs not "together" (like asynchronous basically)
is more likely PNES than epilepsy (this doesn't mean that this can't happen in epilepsy but it's rare and this is common in PNES)

This is a long list on many imitators of epilepsy.

Some of these features are often seen in frontal lobe seizures, which is why those with frontal lobe seizures are often misdiagnosed as having PNES.
 
I Found Out Why!

After talking with some people who knew the speaker, at the fund-raiser, I found out that the speaker had not been asked to speak at the fundraiser until after the event started. This meant that she had no time to prepare for being on the stage. She has a severe case of anxiety and the fact that she was going to suddenly be up in front of the audience is probably why.
She was back standing up and speaking again in less than 5 minutes! She never even thought of not continuing.
I spoke with her later and I would never have know that something like that had happened by the way she presented herself.
It was obvious she had the right kind of attitude for a person who has a condition like this! She accepted having that episode as a normal part of her life and never thought about it after it had happened.
This is the same way I accept having a seizure. Of course it helps that I have never been injured during a seizure! :clap:
From speaking with people at the fund-raiser I found out that many of them had experienced something similar to me. The people told me that either they or their child who was having an EEG seemed to NOT have a seizure while hooked up to the EEG. One lady said her daughter had over 100 seizures a day, but when she was hooked up to the EEG she went for several hours w/o a seizure. The mother said 'Can you imagine trying to keep a 4 year old sitting still for several hours?'.
Has anyone else had this happen?

acshuman
 
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Some of these features are often seen in frontal lobe seizures, which is why those with frontal lobe seizures are often misdiagnosed as having PNES.

Ohhh good point! Speaking of the two getting mixed, I read that people with PNES can "react" during a seizure, so if you poked them with a thumbtack, they can flinch. But people with frontal lobe seizures can also have preserved consciousness in some type of seizures, so I don't know how this really works.

This has to do with the EMU but
I also saw in a medical journal that bringing a teddy bear, wearing cartoon pajamas, and using ten or more colors to describe your seizures when asked to describe them with a drawing is a good indicator of PNES. Sounds like bs in my opinion.
 
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "flinch", but people with many types of seizures in which consciousness is in no way affected (whether frontal lobe or from some other part of the brain) will likely react in some way to a poke with a thumb-tack, or at the very least will be able to recall that they were poked with a thumbtack. (So in a case like this, the "poker" better watch out because the one that was poked may come after them :) )
 
I'm sure many of you have heard about Hillary Clinton 'fainting' after giving a speech by now and probably seen the video of it. She basically fell and one of the security guards caught her and literally threw her in the van. Some people are saying she had a seizure and others are saying this happened because she has the pneumonia. A few hours after it happened she walked out smiling and waving at people, this is what my husband says I'm like after a seizure. If she has an pneumonia you'd think she would have been in bed all day, just my opinion.

Could she have just fainted because of the pneumonia, had some sort of NEE or could she actually have epilepsy and this was a real seizure? I don't want to start some sort of huge argument over this on here, the whole world is arguing about it right now, so please remove this post if you think it should be.
 
Another diagnostic problem is that people with PNES can also have epilepsy. Having one does not mean one doesn't have the other.
 
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "flinch", but people with many types of seizures in which consciousness is in no way affected (whether frontal lobe or from some other part of the brain) will likely react in some way to a poke with a thumb-tack, or at the very least will be able to recall that they were poked with a thumbtack. (So in a case like this, the "poker" better watch out because the one that was poked may come after them :) )
Lol! If I find the study then I'll post it here but I think it was referring to the tonic clonic type where the person is unconscious.
 
I'm sure many of you have heard about Hillary Clinton 'fainting' after giving a speech by now and probably seen the video of it. She basically fell and one of the security guards caught her and literally threw her in the van. Some people are saying she had a seizure and others are saying this happened because she has the pneumonia. A few hours after it happened she walked out smiling and waving at people, this is what my husband says I'm like after a seizure. If she has an pneumonia you'd think she would have been in bed all day, just my opinion.

This has been all over my facebook. People kept commenting on the video (posted on a news page) that she had a seizure and others were saying it wasn't one. Some are saying she has Parkinson's disease. There was another video of her from April and she kept shaking her head back. I think she moved her head in disbelief (like when you cock your neck back after hearing something ridiculous) but it was a little too long, repetitive, and over exaggerated so I saw comments about that video too about she was having a seizure and others said no. :ponder:
 
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