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Are you an adult with absence seizures?
Epilepsy & Seizures | Last Active: Apr 30 9:48pm | Replies (83)Comment receiving replies
I have a question I recently started experiencing something weird. Whenever I was talking to someone in the middle of me talking I would just stop talking and stare off for a few minutes. It would take them calling my name several times for me to respond to them. After these episodes I would feel disconnected or out of sorts for the entire day. I had a MRI done on my head back in 2019 when I started experiencing migraines they didn't find anything wrong with me. I googled what I was experiencing and I found out its called an absence seizure. I never really had these my entire life is this something that you just start having? I am 50 years old I know that my niece was diagnosed when she was 16 with juvenile epilepsy. When my sister turned 30 she expire ended two seizures out of the blue they did all sort of tests and never really could find out why she had them. If its an absence seizure I'm having them more frequently like just this week I had the same feeling of being disconnected and totally out of it. At first I thought it was my new meds but that feeling didn't last long and it wasn't all the time. Unfortunately I can't get into the neurologist until December so I'm trying to learn about this and what questions I should be asking when I do go to the neurologist. Can someone please help me understand?
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@dolphfan
Welcome to our community at Connect.
It's great that you're starting to learn more about epilepsy and seizures. Learning about epilepsy and my seizures has been extremely helpful in my journey, which started in 2019 when I was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy at age 48.
The symptom of non-immediate recovery that you mentioned after your seizures seem more similar to that one of complex partial seizures, also known as focal impaired awareness seizures. Complex partial seizures are often confused with absence seizures.
Absence seizures are generally generalized seizures, meaning they begin in both sides of the brain simultaneously. These seizures cause brief "blanking out" or staring into space episodes. They are very brief and have an immediate recovery.
Complex partial seizures are focal seizures, meaning they start in one specific area of the brain. The symptoms are varied depending on where the seizures start in the brain (temporal, frontal, occipital lobes), and may include staring, chewing, making odd movements, mumbling, running, screaming, or seeing things. The seizure duration is also longer, up to 2 minutes. Awareness in these seizures is impaired, leaving the person very confused afterwards.
I'm sharing here some links with more details on both types of seizures:
Absence Seizures - Epilepsy Foundation
https://www.epilepsy.com/what-is-epilepsy/seizure-types/absence-seizures
Focal Impaired Awareness Seizures - Epilepsy Foundation
https://www.epilepsy.com/what-is-epilepsy/seizure-types/focal-onset-impaired-awareness-seizures
If I were in your place, I would first try to understand with your neurologist what kind of seizures you're having and get a full diagnosis of your epilepsy. If possible, you could ask a family member to video you during a seizure. This could be extremely helpful for the diagnosis.
You mentioned you are on new meds. Are these meds anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs)?
Did your sister continue to have seizures after those two episodes you mentioned?
Chris
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