What Happends During The Postictal Stage After A Seizure?

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JLogefeil

JLogefeil

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What Happends during the Postictal stge during a seizure?
How long does it last?
Can you talk?
Can you walk? Are you really tired?
If someone's talking to you can they hear you and can you reply?
How is your breathing?
Are you confused? ( if you are can you please tell me an example of what Happend?)
How long do you sleep after?
Thanks for all the answers :(
 
I have different strengths of seizures so the post-ictal effect is different. With the lighter seizures, I just keep going like nothing happened.

With the larger ones I'll stop, be a bit confused, sometimes I can talk, other times I can't or I think I can but it comes out garbled. I live in an apartment & recently I just had one before going into the mail-room to get my mail. when I came out of it I knew where I was going but couldn't remember what my apartment number was. I had to go by what felt right guessing which mailbox was mine. It took a while but I got it on the 3rd try.

I do feel tired both physically & mentally. My balance & co-ordination are a bit off. I have been mistaken for being drunk while I was in that phase. I know if I have to stay awake I can though I might not be there mentally though usually I would rather take a 1 or 2 hour nap before I feel better. I don't know how my breathing is but during the bad ones if feels like it's almost an effort to breathe because I feel so tired & spent. I have had ones in the morning, taken a nap but been a bit confused until bedtime that night but that rarely happens.

Oddly the post-ictal effect doesn't always seem to go with how intense the seizure feels. I've had what felt like small seizures but had huge post-ictal effects & had what felt like huge seizures & had almost no post-ictal effect.
 
Post-ictal, right after a big seizure, I don't know who I am. I've not known the year, the President's name, people's names, my own own name... for a good 10-20 minutes, I'm that way and then with the extreme fatigue I can't walk properly for about... 6 hours and combine my inability to walk with about an hour of extreme mental 'grogginess', you're in a really screwed up state, as if you ran a marathon and then dropped acid, lol. Messed up times...
 
It does depend on the kind of a seizure, when/where it happens, how long it lasts, and what shape you were in at the onset of the seizure (i.e. if you were sick, dehydrated, hungry, etc.). Generally if there's been partial or total loss of consciousness, then there's confusion once the seizure's over. A tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure can be physically exhausting as well, and it's not unusual to feel nauseous and want to sleep/rest for at least a few hours after one occurs. In some cases a person may seem to start snoring loudly following a seizure, before coming to. This just shows that the person is beginning to breathe properly (and does not mean he or she is suffocating).

My seizures have all been tonic-clonics, so I don't know how extensive the confusion can be for other kinds. I do know it varies a lot for me. I've had conversations with other folks after coming out of a tonic-clonic even though I'm not fully conscious or responsive. It may seem that I'm alert, but I may not remember the conversation, and my answers/comments may have no basis in reality. (It's a bit like having a conversation with someone who's sleepwalking). I've had a seizure where I dislocated my shoulder and was walking around with it dislocated -- having no idea why my arm hurt, or that something might have happened to cause it. I had a seizure when I was on the phone with a friend. She could tell what happened, and drove round to see me. I didn't know that anything had happened until she arrived, and then I saw that the phone was off the hook and on the floor. I had a seizure where I cut my leg when I kicked a glass cabinet. I "came to" in the laundry room of my house, apparently I had wandered downstairs while still "half-awake", probably in search of a cloth to clean up the bloody mess. Sometimes the confusion has gone away fairly quickly, other times I've felt foggy and "not myself" for a few weeks.
 
I had one gran mal seizure, and from my perspective, I was totally normal post-ictal. I was by myself, though- I had the seizure in the middle of the night in my bed. So when I came around, I saw that it was approx. 20-30 minutes since I had the seizure, but I was totally aware, and able to walk normally. I'm not sure, though, if I was actually "awake" earlier but was in an unaware post-ictal state that I don't remember.
 
Depends on how serious the seizure but for a normal seizure for me:

What Happends during the Postictal stge during a seizure?

I feel exhausted. (so I sleep for hours) nothing in my brain makes sense, and words are all foreign. I struggle to keep track of what's going on around me and what other people are saying. I feel week and I ocassionally act like I"m 4 years old or high, sometimes both.

How long does it last?

Depends on how long I sleep, but the feeling normally last at least a day after I wake up and fade away in severity as time goes on.

Can you talk?

Yes but it comes out all strange, and my mouth feels weighed down and takes alot of effort to move it. So I choose not to but when I do I forget words, and I"ll have to make people guess by saying things such as "That thing that's yellow and you write with it...." (pencil). Staying quite is much easier.

Can you walk? Are you really tired?

I can kinda walk depending on how severe. My leg muscles feel like they're going to fall beneath me. So I can walk slowly for short distances, (some times limping). And Yes I'm exhausted I sleep for hours afterwards and sometimes have to stay home from school for a day or so.

If someone's talking to you can they hear you and can you reply?

I can hear them. I can kind of reply, what I say doesn't entirely make sense as I said before, forgetting words.

How is your breathing?

I breathe very fast but not because I'm freaking out, because I know what it's like to have a seizure I have had them so many times I know what to do. My heart just races so I breathe faster, and everyone tells me to calm down not knowing that I am calm.... Very annoying.

Are you confused? ( if you are can you please tell me an example of what Happend?)

Not really just upset... I count the days since the last time I had a seizure and having to start over is not fun.

How long do you sleep after?

I've slept anywhere 5-22 hours after having a seizure. (I normally wake up half way through for a half hour or so, so that 22 hours is like 15 hours of sleep, get up go to the bathroom, drink something, fall back asleep for 7 hours.)

Hope this helps. ^.^
 
What Happends during the Postictal stge during a seizure?
It all depends on what type of seizure I had. Although severity doesnt seem to make post-ictal worse or not. I could have a violent 5 minutes TC and be fine, but a smaller 30 - 45 second TC could be terrible post-ictal and vice versa.

How long does it last?
Again this varys. i've had it last 5 minutes to 2 hours. If you could Todds Paralysis as a post-ictal symptom then it has lasted 2 days.

Can you talk?
Sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes its just jumbled words, other times I am talking fine. Sometimes and usually I am non-vocal.

Can you walk?
Again, Sometimes. Usually yes, but it'll take a few seconds/minutes to be able to get enough balance or bear any weight on my legs. But if I have paralysis on one side, then no.

Are you really tired?
Always. Sometimes painfully so.

If someone's talking to you can they hear you and can you reply?
Im thinking you mean can I hear them. Usually not. and if I can hear them i cant understand or process what they are saying. So sometimes I just nodd or shake my head, regardless of the what im being asked.

How is your breathing?
im a breath holder during seizures of all types (simples, complex, TC and absence) so after the seizure I usually breathe like I exercised too much. Although with my TCs I have a habit of not breathing on my own after. almost like i forget to start again, or im too tired to start again.

Are you confused? ( if you are can you please tell me an example of what Happend?)
Usually I dont know where I am, what I was just doing, peoples names etc. But sometimes I can recognize people but not items (like that a cat is a cat and not a can)

How long do you sleep after?
It varys from 15 minutes to 26 hours.
 
Im hearing all that in the wake of a TC, mine take two to three days to fully recover from and during that time i feel "fitty" like the TC is lurking around ready to make a reapperance. Any tips or hints for speeding this process up are gladly recieved as at the moment im struggling to do my job as each one is absorbing approximately a week of my life. Am meds changing too at present so hohum here we go again !!!!
 
Any tips or hints for speeding this process
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It's basically like having a nasty hangover, so if you have any hangover recipes that work for you, consider using them while you're post-ictal.

Generally, it's good to rehydrate and eat a little, even if you're feeling out of it. For some folks, a tiny bit of caffeine (like decaf coffee, or watered down tea) can help. If you do okay with ibuprofen, go ahead and take it to help with any muscle aches and pains. Pineapple contains a substance that helps reduce inflammation, and vitamin C is particularly good after a physical trauma -- a glass of orange juice can go a long way. Chicken or beef broth can also help if you don't feel like eating much, especially if your mouth is sore. Stay away from super spicy or acidic foods or anything that's hard to digest.

Gentle massage can help too -- if you know a massage therapist, you're in luck!
 
Nakamova said:
Gentle massage can help too -- if you know a massage therapist, you're in luck!
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I remember when I was in massage college we learned that if someone had a seizure we were supposed to keep the massage very light.

I found this frustrating because I had a seizure while getting a massage from my massage therapist & no matter how much I begged her to go deeper she wouldn't.

What was cool was that she was able to tell me how the erector spinae muscles (that attach to the vertebrae) flexed in rhythm which I would have never known otherwise.
 
hazel said:
Im hearing all that in the wake of a TC, mine take two to three days to fully recover from and during that time i feel "fitty" like the TC is lurking around ready to make a reapperance. Any tips or hints for speeding this process up are gladly recieved as at the moment im struggling to do my job as each one is absorbing approximately a week of my life. Am meds changing too at present so hohum here we go again !!!!
Click to expand...

AFter I have a seizure (like less than two weeks) the littlest things that happen can cause a seizure it's very annoying becuase that means I usally have seizures in streaks, and because I'm still recovering from the ones before each one is worse. I have been trying this expiremental thing with Vitamin E (800IUs a day) because tehre are alot of contorvertial studies over weather or not it helps epilepsy or if it hurts people with other stuff. But the only thing I noticed about it was that my post-ictal periods have been greatly reduced. Like I had a seizure that would normally take me a day or 2 to go back to being able to do normalish stuff, but In three hours I decided to go back to school, and all I had was a minor headache.
 
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