For those who wanted to know how my seizures started:
Aug 2001 - Was in a staff meeting started to taste metal in the back of my throat. Began to have a coughing jag and on my way to my office fell out and had around 4 granmal seizures.Taken by ambulance to hosp and had 1 during the ride and 1 in the ER. Surprisingly, a resident went by my room when my husband was calling for help and said "Oh, my God she's having a grandmal seizure, look now she's going to do this... look how rigid her body is....amazing classic textbook seizure", and walked away.
Admitted to the hosp. worked up for 1 week, saw 4-5 different specialists. Had an MRI, EEG, blood tests every day. Everything was normal.No one had answers and they believed me because they don't resp. quickly to call bells...so none of the staff saw me have a seizure. It was over with by the time they got to the room and when I couldn't talk they just kept saying "why did you push your call bell, what's wrong with you?" So, here's the list of possible dx. they left me with.....syncope, anxiety attack, hypoglycemia, vasal vagal response (pinched vasal vagal nerve), thyroid problem. Couldn't find anything conclusive so sent me home. 15 seizures later from AUG-OCT. we were fed up and gave serious thought to going to Cleveland Clinic. At that time we needed a referral to see any other specialists. While in the waiting room I said to my husband I don't feel well and fell out and had a grandmal. Since the Dr. actually saw it he said "she's having a seizure". I was referred to a neurologist 1 hr. away and he turned out to be the greatest! All along I had kept a diary of all the events even down to what I ate to try to see some type of pattern. Finally, I noticed the seizures were related to my cycle. Final dx Catamenial Seizures. He started me on depakote, sent me into outer space for several days. Then we tried topomax..felt like my face was numb and gave me a terrible headache. After I did some research I asked my neuro if I could try Lamictal started at 25mg because I'm very sensitive to medications and now I'm at 750mg. I was controlled for about 2 yrs. until I had an undetected bladder infection, which caused me to have a seizure at work. At that time I was on 500mg, progressively over the years I have increased the dose with each run of seizures. This month has been terrible....I've had a seizure almost every other day. So, just bumped up the extra 50mg.
Someone gave a link to a website and I spent some time on there and was able to connect a few things. My Lamictal levels have dropped from 10 to 4 so absorption has changed and so have the style of seizure I'm having. Reading more I found that the type of seizure I'm having just recently is related to migraines (which I've had a lot this month) and my migraine medication Fiorcet has phenobarbital in it which can cause certain drug levels to drop.
Research helps and there is no one that wil take more interest in your health than you. Hope this helped in some way, I know it was good for me to hear others experiences.
cm