Time between trigger and seizure?

[Jdb]

Hello! My first post here, so firstly many thanks to all the people here who have provided such valuable information for people to read. Apologies if the following question has been asked before:

For those of you who believe certain foods or additives are triggers for your seizures, how much time usually passes between your consuming said food and your having the seizure? Or if stress is your trigger, do you have the seizure immediately during the stressful event, or can it be a kind of delayed reaction only occurring later on?

I ask because my seizures have unexpectedly returned after many years of being well controlled, and I'm trying to track down any possible causes and would like to know what kind of trigger time frame I should be looking at so I can rule things in or out.

 

[masterjen]

Hi Jdb, and welcome to CWE!

My seizures are nocturnal, so right there I can say that if anything besides sleep is triggering my seizures it is a delayed reaction. No one thing triggers my seizures and I am not even sure I have seizure triggers per se because most often it seems I have a seizure for absolutely no reason. I have noticed that sometimes an accumulation of factors such as an overly busy day along with too strenuous a work-out and letting too much time elapse between meals has been followed by a nocturnal seizure.

 

[valeriedl]

Stress is one of my major seizure triggers. When something stressful happens the seizure usually comes a day or so after it. I don't think I've ever had a seizure right during the stressful thing.

When my grandma passed away the seizures didn't start until after the funeral, which was about 4 days later. My grandma and I were very close and I had very many of them for a few weeks. I had to put one of my cats down about 2 weeks after she passed away and the seizures kept going on. I know I was still having seizures from my grandma but having but also having to have my cat put down added to the amount and length of time I was having them.

When I'm tired, which is another major seizure trigger for me, the seizure will usually come the next day.

As far as food the only thing that will bring on a seizure is caffeine and that will happen the next day and only if I've had a lot of it.

I also have those 'out of the blue' seizures with no trigger what so ever.

 

[AlohaBird]

I'd like to second what masterjen said that it's not always one trigger= one seizure. It often seems random, more random than it really is, because it is possible to "get away with" one thing very occasionally.

My triggers are sugar, booze, caffeine, MSG, aspartame, sleep deprivation, and gluten. Once in a while I can get away with a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, or a dessert. It's the cumulative factor that gets me. It's when the or's turn into and's and the occasionally part turns into every week, that's when there is a problem.

My seizures are nocturnal too.

 

[Cint]

And I second what valerie said. My seizures are often triggered by stress and lack of sleep. After a stressful event, if/when I have a seizure, it's usually a day or two later. I also have diabetes and have had a seizure from low blood sugar, but it was down in the 40's when that happened. I've had seizures morning, noon AND night.

 

[Nakamova]

I agree that there isn't necessarily a standard delay between trigger and seizure, especially because there multiple or cumulative factors as mentioned by folks above. Some studies have shown that seizure-related brainwaves can appear in the brain many hours before the actual event. It's also the case that triggers can change over time, and that if the brain "gets in the habit" of seizing, it may take less of a push to go over the "seizure threshold".

I've had a dozen or so tonic-clonics. My guess is that at least some of them may have been triggered by low blood sugar, aspartame, low electrolytes and/or fatigue. Delay might be anywhere from two hours to seven hours? But some have occurred when none of those factors have been present.

For some tips about looking for triggers, check out this link: http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f22/proactive-prescription-epilepsy-1254/

 

[Crash]

:agree: My seizures are usually stress related.But iv'e woke up fine and had one an hour later,they seem to come in all types off scenarios.Although one thing i have noticed is as i have got older they have reduced in how violent they once were at seventeen.

What is easier for me to tell is what does NOT set them off,but maybe that is all in my head:roflmao:

 

[qtowngirl]

:agree: My seizures are usually stress related.But iv'e woke up fine and had one an hour later,they seem to come in all types off scenarios.

DITTO. stress is a killer, for those in regular life but even more so for those who have it as a seizure trigger.
i've also had bad partials at the end of a day that was fabulous! go frickin' figure.

:hugs:

 

[masterjen]

i've also had bad partials at the end of a day that was fabulous! go frickin' figure.

Same for me.

 

[valeriedl]

As I'd said in my previous post my stress related seizures usually happen a few days after the stressful event.

Last week my parents had to put one of their cats down that I was very close to, my dad told me this over the phone. I was very upset when he told me.

Two days ago I went to their house and actually realized that the cat wasn't there and that he wasn't going to be ever again. I think that's when it really hit me that he was gone. I tried not to cry while I was at their place because I didn't want my mom to start crying too, my dad said that's all she's been doing since the cat's been gone. When I came home I did do a good bit of crying.

I had a seizure today and I know it was due to that.

 

[MouseyMouse]

I have found that pain is a trigger for me. If I start getting a headache, or my back flares up with muscle spasms - I notice that everything slowly goes downhill. I have noticed that it can happen as early as 1 hour from the onset of pain, and as far away as 8 hours.

I keep a very meticulous diary in the form of wordpress blog so all the data is online with no chance of it being wiped out. I don't have it visible to anyone but myself. I notice that it helps with me finding out of there are any new triggers developing, or a pattern of sorts.

I am a writer though, so it works easily for me.

 

[KarenB]

The only food trigger that Jon had (which I figured out) was eggplant. He would have a seizure within about a 2 hour window, but more commonly within about 30 min to an hour. I figured that out by keeping a log of the foods he ate, and the times he had seizures.

Another trigger he has is cold wind. When he was little, most of his seizures were nocturnal and infrequent, but he had a seizure on his 4th birthday (after being seizure free for 2 years) in the middle of the night, after we had been out in a cold wind earlier in the evening. I would never have linked that to a seizure trigger, since there were maybe 3 hours or so from the wind to the seizure; however, later, when he was having more frequent seizures, he had a number within an hour or so after cold wind exposure, and then during the actual cold wind exposure. So, then we started going back to previous seizures we'd logged in and putting 2 and 2 together. And then, someone theorized that if cold wind were triggering seizures -- then perhaps his seizures that were mostly happening between 2 to 4 AM were from being cold at night (he'd never keep his covers on). So, nowadays, he has a heated mattress pad for the winter and he actually wears long sleeved pjs even in the summer and we are very careful about wind exposure.