RobotGreenAlien2 wrote:
Hi, I'm just wondering about the neurological basis of meltdown does anyone know
of any description of what happens the brain during one or have any references to
brain scans.
I'm also interested if some with ASD and Epilepsy could explain what both feel like
and how they compair. Are there similarity or are they completly different, by the sounds
of it some of the triggers are the same; being run down, dehydrated, sensory stuff, generaly
having a sh** day.
Thanks.
Hi RobotGreenAlien2,
I have had Temporal Lobe Epilepsy all of my 59 years of life. The first couple decades were mainly epilepsy with simple partial seizures, and a few complex partial seizures. Secondarily Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizures were then rare, mainly only during other illnesses, such as a severe flu/cold. The partial seizures were the strongest generally during clusters that have a periodic cycle of about every 29 days or so.
Complex partial seizures became the frequent type of seizures during my 3rd decade of life, and into my 4th decade, the Complex partial seizures became more itense and the Secondarily Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizures happened during most every periodic cycle.
LQTS-2 was a problem in very early life, and severe speech impairments were a problem well into grade school. Dental problems and nevi problems became more significant in adolescence. Both painless and painful migraines became a problem in my last years of university.
Direct and indirect social-interaction problems were evident from the start of school, and with my filing discrimination lawsuits against federal employers over handicap discrimination under the Rehab Act, into the late 1980's. My first grade school attempted to have me classified as being mentally ret*d, but by the time I completed university, I graduated in the top 3% of my university and magna cum laude/Beta Gamma Sigma.
In formal social situations in person, I remain ranked in the top 3% in employment evaluations, while when informal social situations are involved, I am dropped into the bottom 3%. A large part is due to prejudice, as social experiments revealed with formal social situations. Informal social situations experiments reveal the range of elements of greatest significance to be individually very nebulous.
Most of what has aspects of "triggers" involve migraines, along with prodromals of migraines being vague sensations that a severe migraine is a day or so away (like feeling "dangerously good"). My seizures don't have specific triggers, as the simple partial seizures happen without any identifying external cause (non-specific environmental factors can increase intensity, but not "cause" the seizures). The clusters usually give wide warning with fairly unique simple partial seizures at first, following very vague epileptic prodromals and slightly more specific pre-ictals to the simple partial seizures.
I wasn't labeled with autism or Asperger's until after university and after I was officially labeled with epilepsy and migraines. The childhood "tantrums" and/or "meltdowns" were identified as more severe complex partial seizures, with much confusion with pre-ictals, the ictus, and post-ictals of the strongest seizures. The ictus of an epileptic seizure is generally less than 5 minutes long, while the post-ictal period of a seizure can be hours long (generally for me, intense tiredness and sleepiness, but for some people, semi-conscious actions with chaotic emotions).
The lengthy time periods between very intense seizures (for me, up to 4 weeks) involve "inter-ictal" psychological characteristics/phenomena which include the "Geschwind Syndrome" and Asperger's Syndrome (and when the inter-ictal is very long, more distinct "Forced Normalization" phenomena). With periodic aggravations of Shagreen patchs with nevi/sclerosis, Tuberous Sclerosis Syndrome is likely a more primary cause of my more readily apparent syndromes. The two Syndromes are distinct, but with many elements still in common (so "The Atacama Crystal" may be dangerous LOL). CNTNAP2
Tadzio
22 Oct 2011, 9:34 pm
