What does a seizure feel like?

Post Reply New Topic

I read the post about seizures being related to autism, and now I think I'm going to revisit something that happened to me twice. It was really strange, quite scary, and made me feel like a total freak. Never told anyone about it. It happened around the age of 16, twice within probably a one or two year period.

I don't know if I want to go into a whole lot of detail quite yet. I think I want someone else to speak first Ask questions if you want.

But for anyone who's had a seizure, what does it feel like to you?

Maybe then I can begin to figure out if that's what happened to me.

If anyone knows anything about Ataxia, too...

I had seizures when I was in 6th grade. I wish I could remember having them but I can't. My mom says it's like amnesia because you don't remember having one.

I suppose you can be doing your thing and the next thing you know, people are telling you you had a seizure and you are clueless what they are talking about.

Maybe it wasn't a seizure, then. I remember it. No one else was around to see. The memory is somewhat fuzzy, I'm not quite sure about how long it lasted or how it stopped, but I do remember being really freaked out as it was happening.

For the kind of seizures I know about, the serious 'grand mal' or 'tonic clonic' kind, you don't remember a thing. You drop to the floor with no control, it causes eyes to roll back into your head, teeth clenching and not uncommonly bad tongue biting, and the whole body shudders. Usually in the range of 2-4 minutes (4 is 'not so good' long. 5 is 'very, very bad and lose too many brain cells' long) and often dead out asleep for some time after. If it is a first seizure, my meager experience says that the sleep lasts a long time -- hours. If it is the Nth one many years later on, the sleep might only be 5 minutes or so.

Not good...

And yes, they are associated with more serious degrees of autism. Athena started her seizures roughly around the time of her first period, so they also can be related to puberty.

There are lesser seizures that I've not observed. Folks I've spoken to who have them, though, also do not remember anything, if I remember correctly.

Jon

My friend used to work for an ataxia charity. Ataxia is a dysfunction in the cerebellum, which is the big bulbous structure at the back of the brain near the neck, which fine tunes movements. It is separate from the cerebrum or main brain. Movement is first processed in the cranium (main brain), then the cerebellum seems to have some auxiliary function that controls exact movement. Doctors also cite that you can take a hunk of the cranium out such as a size of a small apple and have little effect on motor function. So in that respect it is considered less sensitive than the main brain. However I think this is greatly exaggerated because it is not really tested on different types of moment and as to what exact function the cerebellums plays in motor function. For instance it might have limited impact on simple linear movement but may affect may affect sharp rotational movements more and also the acceleration and execution of motor moments.

Ataxia is often referred to as the drunken disease because it make the patient look like the are a heavy drinker and not stable on their feet. Unfortunately the number of doctors that are familiar with the disease is very low so patient often get poorly treated by doctors because of how they appear.

About the seizures, I often wonder if I have micoseizures, all the time without realising it. When I was on Aricept for my executive dysfunction. I was getting a lot of electrical activity like a storm (Not to be confused with the large single zaps on awakening, which is a hallucination caused by the order your brain wakes up). I had to stop because with all the side effects it was making me worse. Part of the problem I have is I don't really get headaches. I don't even get them for hangovers. I only get them in conjunction with ear aches. I do get dull pain in the front of my head like a specific part of my brain is being scared. Just it is not a throbbing pain. However if I move around it is more noticeable.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 16 Feb 2008, 1:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

i have had 2 tonic clonic seizures. both times i came round as though i was just waking up in the morning, i had no idea anything was wrong! the first time (i was 14) i was making pizza in the kitchen & i woke up, realised i wasnt in bed but in the kitchen floor. it was not until my mum told me though that i realised there was something wrong, i just assumed ihad feinted as i had done in the past. apparently i had gone rigid & started shaking & my eyes had rolled to the back of my head. i dont remember anything & as i said just felt like i was waking up in the morning. the second time i was riding a horse (not the best place to have a seizure). again i woke up (this time on a spinal board at a hospital) & i thought i had dreamt riding the horse. unfortunatly i hit my head as i came off the horse so cant remember much that happened that day!
i quite often experience abscences, i dont realise i am in one until i look at the clock & time has passed without me realising it. i also get postural hypotension particularly in the mornings, when i stand up my vision goes & sometimes i fall over.
does any of this sound familiar?

KristaMeth,

I don't think anyone can answer the question for you. From what I understand, a seizure could feel like just about anything. Your question is like asking a computer what happens when it suddenly gets a power spike, or a quick drop in power that is restored. Some won't run. Some will appear to run fine, but forget the event. Some forget things around the event. Some will even be temporarily or permanently incapacitated.

i have been diagnosed with epilespy recently and have had seizures relating to that. it made my head feel all hot and fuzzy and weird like i was about to lose consiousness. one minute i would be working at my desk at work or school or whatever then next i would be on the floor and the ambulance people would be there. i don't remember the time between fainting and the ambulance people arrive(which must have been a good 20 minutes). i have been taken to hospital in an ambulance twice (get ambulance cover peoples) . i have had 5 fits (apparently i convulse i bit). this has only been since last year i have had no problems up to that point, then it just started to happen for some reason.

but it has not happened since then because i have a medication that works.

When I had my first seizure, I didn't even know I had it. I found myself surrounded by paramedics. In other seizures, I knew I had one because before, I would get the feeling it was going to hit and then have and not remember. I'm now on meds, thank god. They were getting worse. I also dealt with tremors, those are gone now too.

I didn't remember what happened during the two seizures I had in my life, but when I woke up, I could feel I had bitten my tongue. Ouch, that hurt!

Depends on the type.

I've heard descriptions of myself pausing for a while and staring off into space with my lips and hands moving repetitively a bit, and then going back to whatever I was doing. I remember nothing of these, and had (and still have) trouble believing the descriptions, because it's literally like nothing happened, I have no memory of the time lost, or even of the fact that time was lost. This was one of the first kind people observed.

The same people also described something similar, but where I would be confused and not remember things just prior to it, so that one I guess felt like my head getting fuzzy and confused.

I don't know if I still have either of those two. The most common kind I have now, is one where first I feel dry all over (sometimes mistakenly drinking a lot of water thinking that will make it stop). That's a simple-partial seizure in itself (that's the "aura" or "warning" some people get before other sorts of seizures). Then time stretches out and it feels like whatever is going on will never end. Then I start getting impressions of all kinds of complex layouts, often of places I've been, but so many of them piled on top of each other that I get completely lost. And somewhere in there my brain fuzzes out and I lose awareness, but I've been told that I do certain things during that time that are very predictable.

I don't know what those things are, but a friend recently read a long and detailed written description of my behavior, mostly by my mother at a time when they were trying to figure out what was going on with me. She said "Oh, that's one of your seizures." So apparently they've stayed really consistent over time. She kept reading and noted that every time they described giving me a medication that happens to make seizures worse, this happened more often. Then they gave me a medication that's also an anti-convulsant (although they gave it to me for other intended reasons) and suddenly I went right back to normal. So there's some sort of consistent thing I do, and I don't remember what it is.

Then I at one point was on a medication that makes seizures worse, and was toxic on it. I had two other sorts of seizures then. One kind, my arms swung out hard and at random. Another kind, I remember feeling almost a "blip" or something in my head (it's hard to describe), and then waking up either on the ground really sore all over, or waking up just before hitting the ground (which meant I felt the impact, which sucked). That kind just made me fall really fast and hard, it didn't make me convulse like a tonic-clonic (which I've never had). I don't have those anymore, except I have the first kind when I'm on medications that lower the seizure threshold.

So basically, right now, I just have the kind where I feel the extreme dryness and then get disoriented and stuff. But a seizure can create any sensation the person could possibly have, because they work in the brain and any part of the brain can have a seizure. After I have a seizure, I have this weird sensation where it feels like someone took out my brain, chopped it into various block-shaped pieces, then scrambled all the blocks -- and it's painful. And usually all I want to do is sleep.

usually I get a nasty "All hell's about to break loose" feeling, then my eyes start rolling, feel sick and then get exhausted and have to lie down. Sometimes I loose a few minutes; sometimes a couple of hours. Occasionally I feel a tingling in my head, followed by unbelievably bad headaches. Sometimes loose my vision. Sometimes have visual disturbances. I use to get temporal lobe siezures where I'd see ghosts and things. All in all, not much fun...

Some of those sound like they could also be migraine (which is much more than just a headache). Then again, there are some things that it's really hard to tell whether you're having a seizure or a migraine.

Seizing the moment topic

As far as I am aware, I have never had a seizure but I have witnessed many, including my son who had two seizures a week apart when he was a year old(he has very mild CP) and reported them to a doctorwho informed me. My son has not had any such activity since then (he is 16) but I am glad I found this topic and may I express my thanks to all who have revealled this here.

Ah! 's funny you should say that... I first got dx'ed with epilepsy, when I told my GP in passing, about a "migraine" I had had. She didn't seem too impressed with my self diagnosis and sent me to a neurologist [Apparently suspected migraine in an autistic = instant trip to neurology ]