Story about Epilepsy , Anxiety, Asthma, Borderline personality disorder (BPD), Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Migraine, Tinnitus, Visual Snow.

Focal Epilepsy, rollercoaster of my life

Sep 14, 2021

Year Condition Began: 2016


It started out one night, January 2016. I was suffering from crippling anxiety at the time in waves. Well one night I got what seemed like a severe wave of anxiety except it was different, it was extreme, reality crumbling deja vu loops that lasted over an hour. I felt it in my stomach, it was making me dizzy and feel like vomiting. I had a surge of panic and called my boyfriend at the time, I rambled to him about what I was experiencing but have no recollection of the phone call itself. I must have passed out from fear, because I woke up the next day with the shakes, no more deja vu but I felt severely uneased. For the next few years I experienced more deja vu than normal, going from once a month to a few times a week. I went to my GP and brought this to his attention and he said it's probably just nothing but ordered an EEG just in case, which came back normal. I forgot about it and dealt with the extra deja vu... until.
December 2018. I noticed the deja vu had started ramping up in frequency and instead of the normal 2-3 times per week it was now happening almost every day. It was concerning, but liveable, I continued on with my life like this for a month.
January 2019. When things really got out of control. I woke up one morning, and the deja vu never stopped. It was exactly like it was that one terrifying night, except it wouldn't stop. I called the health link, payed for online doctors, researched online looking for answers and all I could find aside from epilepsy which I thought had been ruled out was some sort of dissociation disorder. The deja vu was so unbearable I couldn't stand to watch movies, go outside, read a book, listen to the radio or even scroll through my newsfeed because everything had that strange familiarity even though it shouldn't. It made my stomach sink, made my head spin, my heart race, and gave me nausea. I was having the deja vu loop every minute and would have deja vu about having deja vu over and over again. My life turned into a disaster, I would constantly cry and freak out, thinking I was losing my grasp on reality and I will never be normal again. My family and friends didn't know what to do and thought I was also going crazy, they watched in despair as I lost grip, especially my boyfriend and my mother. I could barely function at work and had to constantly leave early. After more research and googling, I came to the conclusion it was probably epilepsy, or a brain tumor at worst. It took me 3 months to go back to my doctor and ask for another assessment. He again assured me it sounded like nothing or a dissociative disorder, but ordered another hour long EEG just in case. The EEG was scheduled for the middle of April 2019.
After the test (which ended early) was complete, I went home. I got a call in a few days to come to the GPs office, where he shared my results with me which were abnormal, referred me to a neurologist, and he prescribed me clonazepam to deal with the crippling fear that instilled into me. The clonazepam was very helpful and stopped the majority of my problems including the deja vu. The beginning of May 2019 I was officially diagnosed with focal seizures. A brain scan was ordered to rule out more sinister causes of the seizures in August, which came back normal. I now take Topirimate and Clonazepam daily and rarely if ever get deja vu.

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