As I mentioned yesterday....

I've recently been diagnosed as having epilepsy.  Aren't I a little old to just NOW be getting that diagnosis?  Well, yes...technically.  However, this isn't something that JUST started.  It's been going on for years, but I never knew what it was...so let me give you the back story:

A couple of weeks ago, I had a grand mal seizure.  I really had no clue what had happened because I thought I had just passed out.  The only witness to the incident was my 3 year old and he still doesn't talk very much so he couldn't tell me what had happened.  My clue that something OTHER than passing out had occured?  My tongue.  It was all purple & sore around the edges...like I had REALLLLLLY bitten it hard.  I talked to my sister & she's the one who suggested I may have had a seizure.  After coming to this realization, I had several other things happen that day....my whole body was sore (most pronounced in my legs) and I had a giNORMous headache.  Allen took me to an urgent care center the next day & they did all kinds of blood work - and one of the tests came back showing that I had a very high level of protein in my blood.  According to the doctor, that is usual in cases of seizure because when the muscles contract like that, they squeeze the protein out into the blood stream.  Sooooo....that was the start of things.  I wanted to know why I had a seizure...as far as I knew I had never had one before & I wanted to know what could have caused it.  I headed to the internet & started to do searching.  I found lots of information on sites like http://www.epilepsy.com/ and http://www.mayoclinic.com/.  In the process of my searching, I came across some information that I found quite relevant to my life. 

For the past (approximately) 13 years, I've had what I call my "deja vu episodes".  I get this feeling like my stomach is flip-flopping or filled with butterflies or kind of rising up....and then I get SLAMMED with deja vu.  I feel like I'm losing my grip on reality...I couldn't tell you what is going on around me during these times because I just don't know...my brain just doesn't process it.  I get really confused and can't form words properly.  I can't talk or answer questions or type because my brain can't think of the words & even if it could, my body doesn't respond the way it should to my brains signals.  I always thought I just had really powerful deja vu.  However, in my searching about seizures, I discovered that there are types of seizures called "Temporal Lobe Seizures" or "Complex Partial Seizures" or "Psychic Seizures" that all basically described what I was going experiencing.  These episodes don't occur often (sometimes I can go several months without having one) so I never really thought much about them until I was reading this stuff online.

So, I met with my primary care physician and she was concerned enough by what I told her that she set an appointment for me with a neurologist.  The neurologist listened to what I had to tell him, went through my family medical history and based on those two things (my history & the history of a family member who was on anti-seizure meds for a long time), determined that I have epilepsy.  He basically said that epilepsy is just a recurrence of seizures of the same type.  He put me on medication to try to control the seizures and from here we are going to attempt to discover WHY I've been having seizures.  There are lots of tests that can be done (EEG, MRI, etc.) however in many cases, there is no determination of what is causing the seizures.  It could be scarring, a tumor, or just genetics.  I'll keep you posted on that portion as the information comes to me.

With all that being said, the thing I want to encourage everyone in is this: do not ignore the things your body is trying to reveal to you.  Also, please don't keep your medical history from your family.  Let them know what is going on and what HAS gone on with you because you never know how it may affect them.