Posted by Elizabeth on October 14, 1999, at 1:14:26
In reply to Epilepsy or what??? Any ideas?, posted by macha on October 12, 1999, at 19:03:33
Hiya.
The "personality disorder" seems like a pretty far-fetched idea to me. If you have a history of childhood trauma or a chaotic childhood, it's possible, but otherwise I'd look elsewhere for answers. Depression, anxiety, and mood swings frequently go along with migraine, epilepsy, and sleep disorders. The vivid dreams might be due to a primary sleep disorder or to fragmented sleep (resulting from nocturnal seizure activity, for example?).
The "wavy noises" and flashes of light sound to me like hypnapompic hallucinations. They're within the realm of normality - unless they cause you difficulty, I wouldn't worry about them too much. They might be signs of an underlying sleep disorder, though. Similarly, the word-finding difficulty could come from poor sleep. The sleep problems, of course, could be caused by anxiety (difficulty getting to sleep) and/or depression (difficulty staying asleep).
"Magical beliefs" caught my eye, and I was wondering if you'd care to elaborate on that (i.e., what sort of beliefs exactly? examples?).
As you no doubt are aware, some people with TLE experience intense religious feelings, often as part of an "aura."As far as what to do about it, I think a neurologist is the first person to see. He or she may want you to see a psychiatrist (perhaps a sleep specialist) as well.
For what it's worth, I know a young woman who has many of the same symptoms. She failed trials of several antidepressants and finally responded to an anticonvulsant. On the other hand, my doctors thought I had TLE for a long time but settled on panic disorder when I didn't respond to anticonvulsants - so who knows?
poster:Elizabeth
thread:13038
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991001/msgs/13112.html