Newbie here...Long Term EEG/EKG Monitoring

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Jacquie

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Hi there,

I am a newbie here. I did post one time in the past but was unable to log into my old account. I'm somewhat an interesting patient for my doctors. I suffer from a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, however, the symptoms I suffer from dysautonomia are also symptoms of seizures.

My symptoms:

tachycardia and sweating that wakes me up at night
tachycardia
sweating
dizziness/lightheadedness
weird feeling in my stomach that rises up
low blood pressure

I am scheduled to have long term EEG/EKG monitoring and I am wondering what to expect...I have had a brain MRI 3 years ago which was normal and I did have an EEG that showed sharp spike waves. The doctors seem to think my symptoms correlate to those of partial simples seizures (not sure if I am saying it right?). I have a few other questions, but will put them in separate posts to make it easier.

Thank you in advance to all your help!
 
Hi Jacquie and welcome back! There is not too much really to the long term eeg except boredom. Once you are hooked up to all the wires, you are pretty much stuck in that bed. When I had mine, I had to call a nurse whenever I needed to use the bathroom! Just try to remember it will be over soon and take a lot of reading material and if possible, a wireless laptop. Some places won't let you use a computer that is plugged in because it can cause interference with the equipment. good luck!!
 
Hi Jacquie, welcome [back] to CWE!

The autonomic symptoms you list can definitely be simple partial seizures. (They're called "simple partials" because they originate and stay in one "part" of the brain, rather than spreading throughout the brain and leading to loss of consciousness).

If you feel like wading through some jargon, there's a good piece about autonomic seizures here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC531654/

A number of CWE members have had the long-term EEG done. They'll chime with good advice like huskymom, but in the meantime here are a few links to the CWE archives to check out:
http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f23/ambulatory-eeg-13312/
http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f20/24-hr-ambulatory-eeg-17487/
http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f23/ambulatory-eeg-10060/

Best,
Nakamova
 
Whoa, didn't want to make you freak out. Autonomic aspects of seizures come into play with something called SUDEP -- unexpected epilepsy death that results from tonic-clonic seizures (grand mals) with autonomic features. What you are experiencing is very different from the situations that result in SUDEP.
 
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