Somatosensory Seizures: These are the most common type of seizure in parietal epilepsies. Patients with these types of seizures describe feeling physical sensations of numbness and tingling, heat, pressure, electricity and/or pain. Pain, though a rare symptom in seizures overall, is quite common in parietal seizures, occurring in up to one quarter of patients. Some patients describe a typical “Jacksonian march”, in which the sensation “marches” in a predictable pattern from the face to the hand up the arm and down the leg.
Somatic Illusions: During a somatic illusion, another common symptom of parietal seizures, patients may experience a feeling like their posture is distorted, that their arms or legs are in a weird position or are in motion when they are not, or that a part of their body is missing or feels like it does not belong.
Vertigo: Patients with parietal seizures may experience a sensation of movement or spinning of the environment, or of their body within the environment.
Visual Illusions and Hallucinations: Patients with visual illusions report a distortion of visual perception: objects seem too close, too far, too large, too small, slanted, moving or otherwise not right. A patient with hallucinations describes seeing objects that seem very real, though in fact they do not exist.
Language Disturbances: Rarely, a patient with a parietal seizure will report difficulty understanding spoken words or language, difficulty reading or performing simple math.