Sensory overload = partial seizures.

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I have epilepsy (absence/petit mal seizures), and one of the triggers is an overload of lights, especially if they have a certain pattern.

Sensory overloads may be seizures that are hard to spot (link). It's still speculation but its speculation with promise and evidence.

I found out with my 2nd EEG that EEG's are not really very reliable...but when they do catch a seizure that's reliable. I had always heard when nursing that it often took 5 EEG's to diagnose seizures in somebody you *knew* had them, but for a long time I didn't understand why they miss them. Then I found out they don't read well very deeply into the brain, and they are basically picking up an electrical echo. The chances of that are better if the seizure is strong and near to the edge of the skull, but not so good if the seizure is mild and deep in the brain.
That made my situation, and situation with my friend, make a lot more sense to me.
I have read of sensory overwhelm being a trigger for a reflex seizure, but not that sensory overwhelm is a seizure itself and I'd be interested in seeing more info on that. Sensory overwhelm goes on a long time for a seizure, and it would be a mild one.

There is no doupt on that, that some people get missdiagnosed, but that's with every disorder the case.

But that autism is more or less something like epilepsy, I don't know...
I read the same once about schizophrenia, that it's like having seizures in a specific part of your brain nearly all the time.
I even heard the same about PTSD once. That it's like having seizures in another specific part and that's also why those people have flash backs.
I'm not sure what to think about that, but I don't see that many paralells and think all those disorders and also sensury overload are something different. They might be in some what connected to epilepsy, but that it's still something seperate.

But that some "messed up" brain waves can influence disorders in the brain or cause them, is highly possible, but even then I would see it as something different than epilepsy.

No, sensory overload doesn't affect me in that way. I just get really annoyed when there's a baby screaming in an enclosed place near me, maybe causing me to glare at it or the mother, and just thinking angry thoughts in my head like ''why can't the little brat just go to sleep?!''
When a sudden loud noise occurs, like the smoke alarm at home, I do jump and go all shaky and everything, but that's not sensory overload. That's just because it made me jump and my nerves are always on edge anyway so I'm sensitive to loud sudden noises. I just yell at the smoke alarm, flapping a cloth near it to stop it, then shutting the door quickly. Then when I walk under it, I cover my ears or put earplugs in if I'm carrying something, just in case there's still a slight chance that it might go off if there's still smoke from the oven lingering about in the air, et cetera.

I only get ''overload'' from too many negative emotions. I start shaking with rage, wanting to scream and physically beat myself up.

Joe, I've heard seizures that affect the limbic/emotional part of the brain can affect people that way. Maybe you should get evaluated for that, just to make sure? It's odd to be so upset you want to beat yourself up and I care, so that concerns me.

Surely if there were really a connection between PTSD, borderline PD and epilepsy a psychiatrist or somebody who sees a lot of these sorts of patients would've seen it as a pattern a long time ago. Looking back it seems like some people I've known with PTSD &/or BPD went on to be diagnosed with some form of epilepsy later so there may be some sort of (limbic?) electrical glitch being missed?

Raziel, are you on an anticonvulsant now? Did your PTSD get better? Are your phobias better?

I still have some PTSD issues once in awhile but generally it seems much better, and my sensory overwhelm was a major problem before I started topamax, and for several months afterwards too until I got on a higher dose. I still have sensory overwhelm but it's mild now. That medication came with side effects but they are worth it in the way it improves my quality of life overall. Whether or not these issues are due to seizures, it seems to help with them somehow, just as it helps my migraines and drastically improves the amount of migraine aura I have to deal with.

Well, but there is also the question if it's not the other way around and if people with epilepsy tend to get more easily PTSD, borderline and so on?

I just have minor symptoms of PTSD left, not being there anymore in this traumatic environment since 3 weeks now.
My symptoms droped very suddenly and also the psychotic like symptoms are gone.
But of course not all symptoms are gone, but I have the feeling that I have good chances that I'm PTSD-symptomfree in a fiew months. At least I hope so.
I struggle a lot more with depressions and that my new shrink toled me (what I allready thought) that there is a possebility that I'm bipolar.



Good that your PTSD is also better.
I'm also very sensitive to side effects, that's why my new shrink just subsribed me agomelatonine at the moment and want's to wait how it goes. Also because I've just "minor depressive symptoms", but the mainproblem is not even the mood at the moment, but the fatigue.
He wanted me supribe me lithium, but I have a major operation in a view months propably and than I would have to go off and on lithium again and he doesn't want that and also he said that I have too many stressors until then to be absolutly sure that I'm bipolar and so he want's to wait and see how I'm doing afterwards.

Back to epilepsy and autism:
I don't have epilepsy I've been toled, but the psychiatry toled me that I have some brainwaves that are typical for people with epilepsy (sharp-wave-complex), but that many people have those without having epilepsy. Also my frontal part of the brain was "sleeping" and the rest "too active".
But the neurology testet me again and also looked about my old EEGs and toled me they are just fine.
Now I'm a bit confused.

Last edited by Raziel on 21 Sep 2012, 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Raziel I am glad to hear you are out of the traumatic environment and your symptoms are improving.

The antidepressant you are on, agomelatonine, sounds promising. I looked it up and saw it is not available in the US yet, but is going through clinical trials here. I am very sensitive to antidepressants and won't take them. Wellbutrin was okay but it increases seizure risk and I can't chance that anymore. So maybe this will be an option in the US soon?

The epilepsy/seizure/brainwave thing can be confusing, I agree. They say I don't have epilepsy either, but like you I also have odd EEG readings. My left temporal lobe goes through slow cycles. They've only caught the left side but I think sometimes both sides do it due to the way it affects my speech.
Maybe this is why I am so right brained creative for being such a logic oriented person? My left brain tends to take a lot of naps or something, lol.

I'm taking two medications right now that are not available in the US at the moment so far I'm informed I just noticed.
Nebido (testosterone) and Valdoxan (agomelatonin). Both very new and expensive drugs actually.But in my case the insurance pays for both.
I don't know if agomelatonin is so much better than normal melatonin. But you could also try Circadin, if you need something to sleep fo the night. That's melatonin who stays longer in the body, because it's chemically changed a bit.



Maybe in the future we all just sensors in our head and stuff and then we are less autistic or not anymore.
Actually this thought even kind of scares me.

I have schizophrenia as well as autism. So sometimes it is hard to discern what is autism and what is schizophrenia. For example, during one of my section 136 incidents (a section under the Mental Health Act where police can detain someone in public who is acting in a very concerning way and forcibly take them to hospital), I was very agitated and in the middle of a severe psychotic episode. I was holding a cigarette lighter saying I was going to set myself on fire in Wimbledon Common. The police jumped on me, restrained me and handcuffed me. Obviously when they did that, I freaked out and started screaming/lashing out/trying to escape. This was a mixture of things: autism in that I cannot deal with physical contact, and also schizophrenia in that I was convinced that the police were actually Spies who were going to take me somewhere and kill me.

Same with the seizure-like activity: I am now not sure where it comes from.