Thanks for the warm welcome so far...I'll throw my quandary out there. Ok, I had 5 tonic clonics over about an hour last April 2013. It also left me with a rather sizable subdural hematoma (SH), we think from falling, over my right temple. I was in the ICU for 5 days and started on levetiracetam, 1500 a day. The EEG at the time was rather abnormal but my neuro said that the amount of blood on the surface of my brain could affect the test so let's wait a year for it to absorb (and it was) then repeat everything and see where we stood. I stayed on the meds a year, no seizures, and just repeated the tests. The MRI was normal...the SH is gone and everything looks fine but the EEG still looks very much like the one a year ago. The Dr told me that this meant that I wasn't going to get to come off the seizure medicine like we had thought, that I needed to stay on it, probably for the rest of my life. I said, "Well, ok. Does this mean I have a seizure disorder or epilepsy?" He said, "Yes, I would call this an epileptic diagnosis."
So there I am. I would like to type out the procedure notes of my last EEG here and get some feedback. I'm working on getting the actual EEG readout but this is the best I have. Any feedback or "interpretation" for a complete newbie is greatly appreciated. Here they are....
Patient is a 42 yr old woman with a history of right subdural hematoma and seizures. This EEG is performed in a standard fashion. While awake, there is a well formed and continuous 9-10 Hz activity seen in the posterior quadrants bilaterally that attenuates well with eye opening. There is a small amount of low voltage 15-25 Hz activity seen in the anterior and central regions bilaterally. With sleep, there is dropout of the normal posterior basic rhythm with an appropriate amount of 4-6 hz activity seen diffusely and symmetrically. Other sleep architecture is not seen. Hyperventilation and photic stim produces no change.
There are occasional well formed sharp transients seen in the right temporal region There are less frequent but independent shap transients seen in the left temporal region.
Impression: This is an abnormal EEG due to bilateral and independent sharp transients greater on the left than the right. This indicates the presence of cortical irritability/disfunction occuring in those areas and may act as a focus for seizures.
That's it....so? What do y'all think. I've had no seizures in a year, I've been religious about my medication, I guess I just thought that the one year eeg would be fine and I'm surprised that it wasn't. Trying to get my mind wraped around all this. Any feedback or thoughts would be appreciated. TIA!!
So there I am. I would like to type out the procedure notes of my last EEG here and get some feedback. I'm working on getting the actual EEG readout but this is the best I have. Any feedback or "interpretation" for a complete newbie is greatly appreciated. Here they are....
Patient is a 42 yr old woman with a history of right subdural hematoma and seizures. This EEG is performed in a standard fashion. While awake, there is a well formed and continuous 9-10 Hz activity seen in the posterior quadrants bilaterally that attenuates well with eye opening. There is a small amount of low voltage 15-25 Hz activity seen in the anterior and central regions bilaterally. With sleep, there is dropout of the normal posterior basic rhythm with an appropriate amount of 4-6 hz activity seen diffusely and symmetrically. Other sleep architecture is not seen. Hyperventilation and photic stim produces no change.
There are occasional well formed sharp transients seen in the right temporal region There are less frequent but independent shap transients seen in the left temporal region.
Impression: This is an abnormal EEG due to bilateral and independent sharp transients greater on the left than the right. This indicates the presence of cortical irritability/disfunction occuring in those areas and may act as a focus for seizures.
That's it....so? What do y'all think. I've had no seizures in a year, I've been religious about my medication, I guess I just thought that the one year eeg would be fine and I'm surprised that it wasn't. Trying to get my mind wraped around all this. Any feedback or thoughts would be appreciated. TIA!!
