Hello, this is my first post here, and I feel rather bad about making it because my problems will pale in significance to other people's, but I'm just hoping for some advice because I think I might be experiencing something similar to Temporal Lobe Seizure (simple partial)...
Without warning, a sudden feeling of 'not being inside of me' happens, as though I'm just outside the room, or when I look down at my body I totally feel as though I'm not in it. It's immediate. Sounds distort (voices are quieter, but other sounds seem louder. Certain things around the room can suddenly stand out larger than they really are, like a bookcase or something else irrelevant, almost as though the colours of the standing-out object are somehow more bold or stark than anything else in the room. I then start to feel a rising nausea and I start feeling intense fear. If it's early evening, I will then experience a strong deja vu which keeps repeating itself, or if at night in bed (these episodes nearly always happen in the evening or at night) I will part-hallucinate instead, with intense memories (like flashbacks to recent but unimportant happenings or a muddling of a recent TV program) that mix with my awakeness.
If it progresses further, my heart starts to race uncontrollably, sometimes my hands tingle, my face reddens, my hands go clammy and I begin to salivate profusely, so much that I cannot swallow enough times. Panic then totally sets in because my fear is now directed towards the possibility that I shall be sick. Sometimes it becomes hard to breathe (but not always). If I reach this point, I'm usually sick once, then I get the shakes, at which point I go to bed and sleep. Other times, I'm not sick at all, but make myself go to sleep in the hope that it passes.
I'm seeking help here because my reading on the net is confusing. Some sites mix symptoms of simple and complex, some state symptoms such as flushing, nausea and profuse salivating would only happen in a complex (but then there would also be need for lack of consciousness which I certainly don't have), whilst others differentiate simply by whether the patient experiences reduced or total loss of consciousness (I don't - and as for loss of memory, I have appalling short-term memory anyway and probably wouldn't notice if this DID happen!). The biggest confusion is that, whilst I seem to share many of the 'aura' symptoms I've read about, people's experience of aura seems to vary from seconds to a couple of minutes. What I experience can last anything between 10 minutes to an hour beforehand, so I really don't know what is going on. I don't want to risk seeking medical advice because I live in a country where I would be required to report any 'seizure' and that could mean instant loss of my driving licence, even though I have never lost conciousness in my life.
And so, to end my already-far-too-long post, can I ask if anyone else with TLS (simple partial) identifies with any of this? You see: in a weird way, it might help if it transpires my 'fear' is actually just a symptom. Maybe it will, anyway. Thanks in advance for any replies.
Post Edited (Bullet) : 4/5/2009 8:36:18 PM (GMT-6)