Question about absence seizures

[authorlmtaylor]

When I was little, I remember having some kind of episode seven times (and probably more) where I "lost time." The first time was in second grade, and the last time was when I was sixteen.

I assume it happened more often and I just didn't realize it...the times I knew it happened were because something was going on around me that clued me in...well, here are a couple examples.

The first time it happened, I was in second grade and my teacher was passing out a multiplication tables quiz. I was good at school and enjoyed these because they were timed and I was the only one that could sometimes finish the entire quiz in the time allotted. As my teacher was passing them out, I was looking at the clock, waiting for her to say start. When she did, I noted the time, and went to write my name on the paper. Seemingly only a second later, when I was halfway through my last name, she pulled the paper out from under my pencil saying, "I said stop!" I looked up at her, totally confused, and said "But we just started!" That was when I noticed she had a stack of papers she'd already picked up from other kids' desks, and they had answers on them. I looked at the clock, and fifteen minutes had indeed passed. I got sent to the office for blowing off the quiz. I was totally freaked out, but when I told my parents they brushed it off, saying I had fallen asleep. When I accepted the time had in fact passed, I asked my friend next to me if she had looked at me during the quiz, if she had seen what I was doing, but she hadn't.

The last time it happened, when i was sixteen, I also happened to be looking at a clock. I was sitting down to watch a tv show that started at four. I looked at the clock and it said 3:42 so I reached for the tv controller to browse the channels for something in the meantime. When I leaned forward, my hair got caught in something behind me and pulled, and I spun around, thinking someone had pulled my hair. When I spun around, my alarm clock behind me read 4:13. Assuming it had somehow gotten off, I got up to reset it back to 3:42, yet when I came back to the tv I found out it WAS 4:13. My watch and every other clock agreed. Somewhere in there I had lost 30 minutes, and had no idea how.

This happened five other times that I noticed, and probably more that I didn't (while I was sleeping or doing something constant for a long period of time). Later, my sister told me they sounded like absence seizures or microseizures that often arise as kids and go away sometime after puberty. yet all the research I've done says absence seizures last for 5-30 seconds. I know for a fact at least a few of these lasted much longer. 30 minutes, the last one, is the longest I know of. Has anyone heard of something like this before, or know if it might have been a type of seizure?? I'm 24 now, so it hasn't happened in 8 years. But I've always been really curious about what it was. The first few times it happened I tried to tell my parents, but they never believed me and so I never saw a doctor. Anyone ever experienced something similar??

 

[Nakamova]

Hi authorlmtaylor, welcome to CWE!

It's possible that what you experienced were complex partial seizures. Those are characterized by impaired awareness, sort of along the lines of sleepwalking. There can be interaction with others, but you would have no memory of it. You can read more about them here: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/aboutepilepsy/seizures/partialseizures/complexpartial/index.cfm

Best,
Nakamova

 

[authorlmtaylor]

You could be right, Nakamova. I read that link and looked up some other articles on complex partial seizures. Epilepsy.com described some people having them at night, where the child will sit up in bed and just stare, maybe clasping their hands or something. That would make perfect sense because almost every night growing up that I shared a room with someone, the next morning they would tell me that I would sit up in bed and stare at them or off into space for a few minutes, and then just lay back down. Although I also sleepwalked and talked in my sleep (still do) so telling the difference would be hard.

The net says the normal time frame for complex partial seizures is 30 seconds to a few minutes, which is still significantly shorter than what I experienced, but it is still the closest explanation I have found. Thanks so much for pointing me to that link, because I was having trouble differentiating between absence seizures and complex partial seizures and some of the others.

 

[Nakamova]

I think some of the members here have experienced longer complex seizures, so it's not out of the question that that's what was going on for you. Another possibility is a dissociative episode, but I imagine you have ruled that out.