help please - anyone having similar symptoms

Wow its nice to have my computer back! A quick question for you all.

My 17 yr old niece is having episodes as follows:

Preceding episodes:
Sometimes waking up in the morning feeling sick and head feels funny
Sometimes this doesn't happen she feels fine

Episodes:
She is losing moments - example : she will be sitting in a class at school everything is fine
She then feels like she is "waking up" , is not sure where she is or how long she has been unaware of her surroundings
She feels frightened and "out of it"

After this she often feels tired and sick (has vomited)
No head pain.

Her doctors are treating it as anxiety, which yes may be the cause. I have other concerns more related to migraine or other neurological conditions.
We have a strong family history and I don't want her docs dismissing this as not being a migraine attack (silent migraine) or other

I was wondering if anyone has any similar symptoms or stories.

Thanks all and hope you are well
Jo

I haven't experienced these symptoms yet in my migraine progression (who knows what will happen tomorrow, next month or next year--they're always changing).

I hope the doctors are thorough in reviewing your niece's symptoms. May have to flat out ask to be referred to a neurologist and specifically one who specializes in migraines. Just to make sure all the bases covered.

I'll keep her in my prayers. I'm sure it's a little scary for her.

Becky

Thanks for responding. I know her symptoms are quite extreme. They are also looking into absence seizures and anxiety attacks.
It grew concerned when the docs dismissed the migraine family history out of hand and wanted to put her on anti-depressants right
away for anxiety. I just wanted to see if anyone could relate to her symptoms as maybe a sign of migraines.

Jo

It sounds like a classic case of epilepsy. I would have here checked for that specificly. Confusion after an epileptic seizure is common. One does not have to go into convulsions for it to be epilepsy. There are drugs to treat this, I believe. Migraines are related to epilepsy and some doctors get all paranoid about migraines because of this.

Hal

I think epilepsy petite mal, too. best check that out by a good neuro. sorry to hear about that.

Risa

Hi Jo, I'm afraid I immediately thought epilepsy too. I have a good friend who had similar 'episodes' to your niece a couple of years ago. However, they never got any worse than this and the tablets she was prescribed helped her immediately. Whatever your niece is suffering from, I hope she gets helped soon.

Liz

Hi,

I did get diagnosed with Transient Global Amnesia, which was attributed to my long standing migraines.

The feeling was being aware of everything around me yet remote from it, it was a bit like being a spectator watching a play. It passed in about 2-3 hours but I was admitted into hospital at the time, but nothing was found. The Neurologist seemed to think is was due to blood flow to the brain after a very bad migraine attack.

I hope that you find the answer soon,

Peter

Sounds very much like my friends youngest son's seizure activity. He no longer has Grand Mal (medication takes care of it), but thorugh out the day he has many episodes of brief zoning out without remembering anything.

Tests reveal that he is having almost constant mini-seizures.

Charlotte

I thought epilepsy too. I would make sure she sees a good neuro and has an EEG done.

Alli

Thanks for your replies. I am concerned that the doctor has too quickly decided it is anxiety and not digging enough.
She is at my sister's insistence getting and MRI and a sleep deprived EEG done . Thank goodness. If it anxiety then
so be it but the time needs to be taken to rule out anything physical!

Yeah, I've got to say that I wouldn't rule out anxiety so quickly. There is a link between migraine sufferers and anxiety disorders. Half my family has anxiety disorders and half have migraines.

I began having anxiety episodes that sound similar to your nieces. They all started from a panic attack that I had after smoking marijuana. I would feel very out of it, like I was walking in a dream. I would come to at times not really remembering what had happened. My brain was so tired from being anxious, that it couldn't put in the energy to be aware of my surroundings. I also had a lot of stomach pains / nausea when I was really wrought with anxiety.

I went on anti-depressants and the symptoms went away immediately. But with the anti-depressants brought a lot of horrible side effects. After a year of treatment on anti-depressants, I haven't had any recurring anxiety / panic attacks, aside from things traumatic enough to evoke realistic anxiety reactions. I would really recommend she avoid the addictive anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax at that age. I was young as well, I knew what it was, I knew everyone wanted it, and I worked hard to convince my doctor to give it to me.

Honestly, at age 17, she may not be telling her parents / family something that caused the anxiety in the first place. If your doctor suspects anxiety, take her to a good psychiatrist. Family doctors are not trained in this kind of thing and they will throw every drug at her without taking the time to listen.

I began to suffer from migraine when I was 21. I had never had a headache before, but a few years before turning in a migraineur, I had some weird symptoms that no doctor could relate to any disease and that they labeled as "anxiety".
My symptoms were tachicardia, afasia, detachment sensation, extreme and sudden weakness, tingling. The worst one was something that I still find it hard to explain. It was as if I had a hammer that was swinging from one temple to the other. No pain, just a "sensation".
Another scary sensation I got in that period was a kind of electrical flash from my back to my head, especially when I woke up in the morning.

I think that your niece needs to do additional tests to exclude other diseases and then wait and see. It's bad to say, but if there's a family trend for migraine she could be a candidate...Sorry for her

Keep us posted

Yep unfortunately I have little doubt she is already experiencing some kind of migraine attacks, whether these episodes are related or not.
Mine started about the same age so I feel sooooo badly for her knowing what may be coming. My sister is on top of it though and we are
pushing really hard to get her the right diagnosis. Thanks for all your feedback everyone.

Jo

I know when I had migraines in high school (didn't realize what they were) I would wake up feeling completely awful - and would go back to bed and sleep for 4 hours or so. Would wake up and feel fine. The first line of your symptoms struck me as that. I had no idea what they were and attributed them to something else.

My thought is something neurological...which seems to be the consensus of others. There's something not quite right in her system. Hope they are able to figure out what it is.

Becky

Hi Jo

I do get similar symptoms, which my neuro has put down to migraine. Like Peter I get transient global amnesia sometimes. For me this feels like a complete loss of a chunk of time, which I never get back. Mostly it has occurred when I am in a heightened emotional state also. I usually just lose 5-10 minutes or less of time, and I've always been on my own during these episodes so can't say how I appear to an observer. But I have managed to complete a bus journey and walk to a destination, cross roads etc which I later can't remember, so I suspect I probably appear quite normal, and my survival instincts do seem to stay intact.

I'm glad she's being checked for other things too, epilepsy etc need to be ruled out.

The next time I have an attack I'm supposed to go and get checked out at the time, ask observers what I was doing etc to get a better idea of what's going on. But as luck would have it I haven't had one for about a year! Actually this coincides with me taking omega-3 supplements, which have reduced my hemiplegic symptoms greatly, so maybe it is part of migraine aura/hemiplegic migraine for me.

If she receives a diagnosis I'd love to know what it is. I do wonder what is going on with me and if it really all is 'just' migraine. It might give me another avenue to explore.

Take care

Amy