Hi, I wanted to introduce myself. I've been lurking for a couple months now as I've gone through the process of getting a neurologist and doing tests, and I've really appreciated this forum as a source of information.
I started having what I thought of as "dizzy spells" almost ten years ago. I would have brief (a minute or less) episodes of intense deja vu, along with a sense that I was dreaming (or remembering a previous dream) and sometimes a sense of impending doom. I was in my first year of law school, under lots and lots of stress, and my general practitioner dismissed them as anxiety and essentially told me to get over it. At the time I was having a hard time explaining what was happening. More recently I started having them a lot more often (every two weeks). My own internet research (which was immeasurably helped by forums like this) convinced me that it was time to see a neurologist.
I don't have any definitive diagnosis, but my neurologist now thinks that I'm most likely having simple partial seizures. My eeg was almost normal, and the MRI didn't turn up anything that would explain my symptoms, so she put me on antiseizure meds to see if it helps. My understanding of her thinking is that if the meds stop the symptoms, then they are seizures. If it doesn't, then we look at other explanations.
I spent a couple weeks on lamictal, my face and lymph nodes swelled up, and she pulled me off of that. Now I'm on Keppra (just today moved to 500 mg/ twice a day). The Keppra is going ok. I feel pretty high at the moment, but I think that's a result of the recent dosage increase.
I'm really concerned about the idea that I probably have to stay on meds long term, and about the possibility of mood or personality changes from the meds. It's especially hard to wrap my poor brain around the idea that I need to be on medication that actually makes me feel worse than the original symptoms. But what I've read about kindling effects makes me think medication is the way to go.
I started having what I thought of as "dizzy spells" almost ten years ago. I would have brief (a minute or less) episodes of intense deja vu, along with a sense that I was dreaming (or remembering a previous dream) and sometimes a sense of impending doom. I was in my first year of law school, under lots and lots of stress, and my general practitioner dismissed them as anxiety and essentially told me to get over it. At the time I was having a hard time explaining what was happening. More recently I started having them a lot more often (every two weeks). My own internet research (which was immeasurably helped by forums like this) convinced me that it was time to see a neurologist.
I don't have any definitive diagnosis, but my neurologist now thinks that I'm most likely having simple partial seizures. My eeg was almost normal, and the MRI didn't turn up anything that would explain my symptoms, so she put me on antiseizure meds to see if it helps. My understanding of her thinking is that if the meds stop the symptoms, then they are seizures. If it doesn't, then we look at other explanations.
I spent a couple weeks on lamictal, my face and lymph nodes swelled up, and she pulled me off of that. Now I'm on Keppra (just today moved to 500 mg/ twice a day). The Keppra is going ok. I feel pretty high at the moment, but I think that's a result of the recent dosage increase.
I'm really concerned about the idea that I probably have to stay on meds long term, and about the possibility of mood or personality changes from the meds. It's especially hard to wrap my poor brain around the idea that I need to be on medication that actually makes me feel worse than the original symptoms. But what I've read about kindling effects makes me think medication is the way to go.
