Simple Partial Seizures
What happens?
People who have simple partial seizures do not lose consciousness during the seizure. They remain awake and aware throughout the episode. Sometimes they can talk quite normally to other people during the seizure and they can usually remember exactly what happened to them while it was going on.
Simple partial seizures can have an unusual and often times frightening effect on movement, emotions, and or sensations.
Movement
Uncontrolled movements can occur in just about any part of the body. Eyes may move from side to side; there may be blinking, unusual movements of the tongue, or twitching of the face.
Some simple partial seizures start out with shaking of a hand or foot, which then spreads to involve an arm or a leg or even one whole side of the body. Some people, although fully aware of what's going on, find they can't speak or move until the seizure is over.
Emotions
A sudden feeling of fear or a sense that something terrible is about to happen may be caused by a seizure in the part of the brain that controls those emotions.
"My daughter Janie had seizures that affected the part of her brain that had to do with fear and panic. For no reason we could see, she would become suddenly terrified. It happened at school, too. It took a long time to realize what was wrong, get medication, and control the seizures."
In rare cases, partial seizures can produce feelings of anger and rage, or even sudden joy and happiness.
Sensations
All five senses-touch, hearing, taste, smell, and sight-are controlled by various areas of the brain.
Simple partial seizures in these areas can produce sensations such as a sense of a breeze on the skin; unusual hissing, buzzing, or ringing sounds; voices that are not really there; unpleasant tastes; strange smells (also usually unpleasant); and, perhaps most upsetting of all, distortions in the way things look.
For example, a room may suddenly seem narrower, or wider, than it really is. Objects may seem to move closer or get further away. Part of the body may appear to change in size or shape.
If the area of the brain involved with memory is affected, there may be disturbing visions of people and places from the past.
"I was working in a television station, looking at a weather map, when I suddenly smelled a strange odor and there, in the middle of the map, was a vision of my brother driving a tractor on the farm. The vision suddenly faded, the odor got worse and I felt sick. I couldn't speak or respond at all until about eight minutes later."
Sudden nausea or an odd, rising feeling in the stomach is quite common. Stomach pain also may, in some cases, be caused by simple partial seizures.
Episodes of sudden sweating, flushing, becoming pale, or having the sensation of goose bumps are also possible.
Some people even report having out-of-body experiences during this type of seizure, and time may seem distorted as well.
"When I was 15, I started having some strange feelings. I'd get a déja vu feeling, a funny smell, and then get dizzy. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had it removed. Everything was fine for a while, then the feelings came back and they said I had epilepsy."
In many ways, our usual, comfortable sense of familiar things and places may be disrupted by a simple partial seizure.
Well-known places may suddenly look unfamiliar. On the other hand, new places and events may seem familiar or as if they've happened before, a feeling called déja vu!
Simple partial seizures can also produce sudden, uncontrolled bursts of laughter or crying.
"My seizures are caused by a head injury. I fell down a flight of stairs and hit my head on a cement wall. When I have a seizure there's an odor I smell and then I have blank periods where I will start out in one room and I'll end up in another room and I won't know why I was there. Or I'll blank out and keep on doing whatever I was doing but I won't know what's going on at that time."
Source - Epilepsy Foundation of America, adapted with permission.
|
E-mail this page