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These crazy little things... |
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So this will have to be a short update, as I need to go and pick up Sabrina from Kindy soon. But I felt I needed to write some stuff down, because I've been a little overwhelmed recently.
I don't remember specifically, but I'm pretty sure at some point in the last 5-6 years I must have written about the weird "episodes" I get sometimes. The first one happened several years ago, before Sabrina was born and back when me and Taina were living in Mana, Porirua.
I was on a bush walk on the path by the waterfront, right across the road from the flat where we were living (man I miss living so close to the water), and all of a sudden, I could smell something very strong and unpleasant, like a strong herbicide, and then I felt a bit weak and sick, and felt very tired for the next day or so.
At the time I thought maybe some herbicides had been sprayed on the bushes and I had gotten some kind of poisoning from it. But when Tai and I went to the hospital to get checked out, they couldn't find anything unusual.
Since then, periodically I get these weird events. Sometimes I can go for months at a time getting none of them. Sometimes I get multiple of them a day. I often smell something that's not really there, or sometimes I hear nonsensical voices in my head. I often feel nauseous, but only for a few seconds, and I never actually vomit. Sometimes I feel tingly, like pins and needles sort of feeling, in my legs or arms. I often feel a surge of a powerful emotion, maybe I will suddenly feel really sad or stressed, other times I might feel a weird surge of euphoria for no reason. But the worst symptom is sometimes I forget a whole ton of stuff, like what day it is, or what I was in the middle of doing.
When these events happen, they don't last long, maybe 30 seconds. However when it affects my memory, sometimes it can take up to a couple of hours to remember all the things I might have forgotten, so it can be quite stressful.
A while after getting that first event, once I had started getting several more mini ones, I went to see my GP, who at the time was the Medical Centre in Mana. The doctor there had seen on my past records that I had a history of experiencing migraines, and it just so happened that she was a bit of an expert in migraines and migraine auras (the weird sensations people sometimes experience right before getting a migraine) so before I'd even gotten far into my description of what I had been experiencing, she immediately got excited, saying these symptoms sounded similar to migraine auras she had been studying, and that I was obviously experiencing rare migraine symptoms.
I didn't question it, and she provided no advice on how to prevent or treat these supposed migraine auras, so I carried on putting up with these experiences for the next few years.
So now here we are, and I am experiencing these events more and more, getting more frequent than ever. I get less headaches than I used to, and when I do they seem more like sinus headaches than migraines, plus they never seem to coincide with the supposed aura symptoms.
I have noticed certain patterns with these weird events though, like they are more likely to happen if I have a sudden increase in body temperature (eg walking around outside in the cold and then walking into a building where the heating is turned up high), or when I am hungry or thirsty I seem to be more prone to these events also.
A couple of months ago, I was googling my symptoms for about the millionth time, but this time I must have worded it slightly differently, because I suddenly got a search result about epilepsy, which had never come up before.
I had never realised considered epilepsy. Whenever I had ever heard anyone talk about epilepsy, they talked about people having seizures where they'd start spasming and jerking, and maybe pass out. I definitely hadn't had anything like that happen.
But I clicked on the epilepsy UK site that came up in my search result, and found that there a few types of epilepsy. In some types of epilepsy, people stay conscious the whole time, don't jerk or spasm, and instead can have symptoms very much like the ones I was experiencing: sensing things that aren't there, sudden rushes of mood, tingly limbs, nausea, and even a sense of deja vu, which I also get every time. In the past, I had always thought epileptic seizures were usually triggered by flashing lights (which have never bothered me), but I started reading they could triggered by caffeine, tiredness, dehydration, all things that plausibly fit quite well with the circumstances around when my events had occurred.
So, long story short, I went to a doctor a few weeks ago, explained what I was experiencing and what I thought it might be, and she took me seriously and referred me to get an EEG.
I got an EEG scan two weeks ago, where I had to lie down on a bed, and they connected little things all over my head, that linked up to a computer. They made me stare at bright lights, and made me make myself hyperventilate for five minutes straight (that was tough), and then lie back and try to fall asleep (quite difficult to do in a hospital with constant noises of people in the hallways). It was an interesting experience, but tomorrow I have an appointment with a neurologist to hopefully find out what the results are.
I wouldn't say I want to have epilepsy, as such, but I somewhat am hoping they can give me a clear diagnosis, and a clear plan for treatment. These events have been a real pain, particularly the memory loss moments, especially when I am dealing with learning a new job, and looking after a 4 year old daughter, and various other things I don't have time to go into now.
But that's just my small update for now. Hopefully I get into some more stuff soon!
weezieishness · Mon Aug 14, 2023 @ 03:23am · 0 Comments |
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