# What causes long-term DP/DR? Closer to the truth...



## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Hello Everyone, 
I've been on this site for quite a long time...about two years. I am still in college, and hoping to be accepted to med school soon. Ever since I got DP, I've been trying to understand the biological causes of it...I'd eventually like to work within a DP unit. I was recently in the library of my university hospital's psych ward, trying to do some research for a paper I was writing: _From Hysteria to Shell Shock: The Influence of World War I on the evolution of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder_. While I was there, I also picked up a book called _The Practioner's Guide to Psychoactive Drugs_.

I've noticed that people with longterm DP share alot of similair personality traits. I've also noticed, and so have many other people here, that DP and DR are very, very closely related to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. I mentioned in a previous post that French neuroligists described how people with this kind of epilepsy showed and exhibited odd personality changes and psychiatric symptoms. It was termed a Temporal Lobe Personality. Let me quote some of the book's description of a Simple Partial Seizure affecting only the temporal lobe:

" Simple partial seizures present as paroxysmal alterations of cognition, thinking, perception, sensation....For example, the sudden experiance of fear is a common expression of a simple partial seizure. When the seizure is coupled with autonomic changes such as tachychardia ( fast irregular pulse) it may _mimic a panic attack_. Affective changes such as depression or anger that _washes up over_ may occur. "

This next one is very, very revealing:
"Changes in the perception of space ( described by patients as a feeling of "falling as in a dream" or "standing up in a canoe") may be reported. Other perceptual changes sucha as objects getting larger or smaller can result. A particualr abdominal sensation likened to going over the hump of a roller coaster may be felt. Some patients describe deja vu and jamais vu. Others see colors or flashes of light, or odd tastes, sounds, or smells. Some authors consider seizure "auras" to be simple partial seizures. "

Well, I think everyone here with DP or DR has had an anxiety attack. I particularly remember a description by Dreamer of her DP "washing over" her, and I myself used to have frequent mood swings which came about without provocation. Martin has also spoken of this. I have also experienced the illusion of objects becoming larger and smaller, or macropsia and micropsia. Several posts on here have been made on here regarding them. Many people on here complain of lights or spots in their eyes and some people get the sensation that they are getting "pulled into the floor" or frequent bouts of dizziness, as in Dreamer's case. Does this mean that we all experience simple partial seizures? If you've had an EEG which is negative, does this mean your DP is simply a psychological dissociation? No. It continues speaking of the Interictal Behaviour Syndrome. The "interictal" period is the period between seizures. This is the modern term for what the French termed a Temporal Lobe personality:

"The hallmark of this syndrome is the deepening of affect: Previously unimportant matters become invested with great significance. Hypergraphia ( a tendency to write in excessive length and detail ), a preoccupation with excessive detail, tendency toward cosmic philosophical speculation, and hyperreligiosity may appear. Irritabiliy and lability may also appear. A quality called stickiness or "viscosity" manifested by the inablitiy to end a task or to leave at the end of an interview, may also arise. Hyposexuality (loss of libido) is common, but hypersexuality (excesive preoccupation with sex) may occur. "

I think that this pretty much sums up character traits I see in longtimers on this site, and in myself. I submitted my first book to a publisher when I was six....Dreamer was a writer in Hollywood, I believe.....Janine loves to write and publish, and always has....Sebastian does as well.....A preoccupation with excessive detail? Lots of OCD around here, in my opinion. Tendency towards philosphical speculation? Yeah, thats the worst symptom of all for some people. Definitely irritablility and paranoia. And Sc, you may not find much except for obsessiveness to identify with, but look at the occurence of hypersexuality in people with this...It concludes with:

"Sometimes features of the IBS are seen in patients with abnormalities in the temproal or frontal lobes or limbic system who _do not have actual seizures_. "

Well, I think that describes us in a nutshell. It attributes these same symptoms in people with negative EEGs to a phenomenon known as kindling. Kindling occurs when sub-seizure level stimulus is given to a brain area repeatedly. At first, nothing occurs. But over time these neurons become more and more erratic in their electrical firing. Eplilepsy is known to get worse in emotionally stressful situations - its just a fact that it does. When rats whose brains were "kindled" were exposed to the original environment in which it occured, they immediately had a seizure. This means that while their brains were indeed physically changed, their environment and emotions also affected their "Interictal Behavior Syndrome" . And here is something for Janine - It was found that:

"Some patients can be taught to abort their partial seizures by mental concentration, relaxation, or behavior modification. "

Lastly, to control the effects of a damaged temporal lobe, or Interictal Behavior syndrome, which I think that many of us may suffer from, it also reccomends several medicines. The one with the most value when this book was written, in 1991, was considered Tegretol, or Carbemazepine. Beleive it or not, it also recommends Clonazepam for controlling anxiety attacks caused by Simple Partial Seizures. Finally, and this is obviously a last resort, if a seizure foci ( the brain area in which the seizure begins) can be found, it is often cut out when the patient does not respond to medicines, which evidently happens frequently in patients with these odd sorts of seizures. This can, it says, correct some emotional problems stemming from seizure induced mood swings. Well, I'll keep you guys posted on any more findings as my understanding of DP improves. I'm hoping to write my next paper on this and hopefully get some input from Daphne Simeon. Have a Merry Christmas everyone, and I wish you all much

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2004)

Homesckooled that's a great post. I've always identified with the description of TLE, to a "T" practically. I don't know where that leaves me... but I don't think I'll have a piece of my brain cut out any time soon. Merry Christmas.


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

Homeskooled, very interesting. I have experienced a few different types of dissociation feelings but one that sticks out in my mind, one that provoked years of panic disorder, which I imagine is similar to a cannabis provoked attack, was under strobe lighting. There was no indication at the time of any anxiety, it was extremely physical, but very scary. After that came dp and dr, episodic over the years. I always felt it was a bit of an emotional epilepsy, or at least it became more emotional over the years. I think its important to try understand the biological/physiological aspect as much as the psychological aspect. I am convinced that both play a huge part in this phenomenon, especially since I find 'self therapy' to be helping my dp a lot. And I am sure there is so much to be discovered.

Am starting a psychology degree soon, would love to chat on the subject sometime!


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Dear G-funk, 
Actually, I remember reading your story about the strobe light and thinking, "Yep, thats definitely a sign of epilepsy." Have you had an EEG to rule this out? The way in which they try to set off a small seizure during an EEG is to put a strobe light in front of the person's face and see if it registers any spikes in brain waves. You're probably an excellent candidate for trying one of those meds, too. In a lot of cases, I dont think DP is going to be eliminated unless we understand the biological cause as well as the emotional situations which exacerbate it. Feel free to email me anytime.

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2004)

Great post, Homeskooled



> The hallmark of this syndrome is the deepening of affect: Previously unimportant matters become invested with great significance. Hypergraphia ( a tendency to write in excessive length and detail ), a preoccupation with excessive detail, tendency toward cosmic philosophical speculation, and hyperreligiosity may appear


Parts of your description describe me to a "T". Oddly enough, some of those traits are what enabled me to complete my first novel.


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2004)

You submitted your first book to a publisher when you were six? Nice. I just turned 21 and I'm trying to find a literary agent. I've drawn from a very young age and I'm about two semesters from a bachelor's degree in fine art and a minor in writing.


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2004)

Im confused, so do you think that many of us here have SIMPLE PARTIAL SEIZURES OR TLE???

The first psychiatrist that I ever saw thought this same thing and put me on Tegrethol, however it made me feel worse. Every other doctor or therapist that Ive been to doesn't seem to think it has anything to do with seizures?? I had an EEG done, and there was a small abnormality but its signifigance was unclear, my last psych who moved away, said that the abnormality occured during the part of the test where they flash those weird lights when you have your eyes closed and said that it was nothing to worry about.

Ive also had a BrainScan/MRI done and everything looked fine on it. So I don't understand how this could be seizure related????????????

I feel like im goin in fuckin circles, i went through the whole seizure theory last year and 98 % of the people on here even thought the seizure thing was nonsense.


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2004)

now im gonna obsess on Seizures & other physical brain conditions, I haven't done this in a very long time but after reading this post, now i know im gonna think about it.

Maybe this thing is slowly killing me, maybe its some rare brain disease or some shit

what the fuck

Im sounding like How I was last year at this time


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2004)

I'm supposed to be partially narcoleptic or something.


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2004)

Hi Homeskooled,I'd like to say I think what you are doing is wonderful.I have no doubt you will be accepted into med school.
We need people like yourself.

I tried to see where I might fit into the dp profile?In truth I'd be happier not to fit the picture.In truth I'd rather not have dp.

As for temporal lobe talk.
I was speaking with my psychiatrist recently.
He said when he was back in med school(many years ago) there was a lot of interest in using anti seizure medication to treat psychiatric conditions.
Tegretol back then was the in drug.
He said the premise being exactly as you suspect that certain conditions have an aspect of temporal lobe dysfunction.
I suggested to him that it might be possible that dp is actually a form of atypical epilepsy.
He said it is possible but so far nobody has been able to prove it or prove any cause what so ever for dp not to mention other conditions.
He felt that evidence based medicine within psychiatry practically did not exist.
We spoke of how today's drugs such as lamactil are marketed as mood stabilsers but in reality are anti seizure meds designed for epilepsy such as the contoversial neurontin.
He's thoughts were that these medications including klonopin and anti depressants simply calmed people down,helped them to control their anxiety.
He said there is no research that can even prove the serotonin theory?
He prescribes drugs to many of his patients and yet is suspicious of the drug companies and unconvinced that newer drugs are any more reliable than the older ones.

The bottom line was,according to my doctor that if dp is a form of epilepsy the likely treatment would be the very medications that people are now using to treat it.
He offered me tegretol lol

Homeskool as you are interested in science you might like to know that I have a close blood relative who has developed dp/dr.She takes a combination of xanax and lamactil,it is helpful.
I find little explanation other than genetics.In my mind the odds of it having a psychological cause in our situation(myself and relative) to be very slim.
Having said that dp/dr appears to be easliy exacerbated by stress/anxiety as do many other conditions.

One thing my doctor said that I found annoying was he is certain that many other people with all types of different psychological disorders experience dp but don't focus on it as much as say I do,hence this is why it seems so bad to me.
Naturally I argued with him lo.
I don't believe it's that simple as I know from personal experience there are degrees of dp.Sometimes it's very powerful and all consuming not because I'm focusing just because it is and that is the question I can't answer.Why does it sometimes hit like a wild storm that won't quit?
It's very possible to have panic attacks/anxiety/agoraphobia/depression etc without chronic dp..........because I've had it all but did not have chronic dp.

My two cents worth...........actually more like 20 cents worth.

best Shelly


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## Inflammed (Aug 10, 2004)

*Every fu**ing disease or condition have symptoms similar to DP/DR, Hypoglycemia, heart attack, stroke, trauma, schyzophrenia, anxiety, vision problems, food alergy, candida albican, just to name a few.

Yes...maybe DP DR doesnt exist at all, it could be a disease they havent found yet...
But if it was really related to seizures or epilepsy...
We would have different kinds of symptoms...even semi-seizures, you're saying that we have only the biochemical unbalance of seizures without the muslces spams and all the physical symptoms...to me it's erally impossible...

Yet your deduction is very clever...but to me it is nonsense....
Have you ever seen someone having a seizure ? or an epilepsy crisis ?
I saw a few ones and it is FAR from DP DR...
The symptoms related to DP DR and seizures are only psychological...yet again created by the fear it causes to the person.*

_Background: Complex partial seizures cause impaired consciousness and arise from a single brain region. Impaired consciousness implies decreased responsiveness and awareness of self and surroundings. During a complex partial seizure, the patient may not communicate, respond to commands, or remember events that occurred. Consciousness might not be impaired completely. During a complex partial seizure, some patients may make simple verbal responses, follow simple commands, or continue to perform simple or, less commonly, complex motor behaviors (eg, operating a car). Complex partial seizures typically arise from the temporal lobe but may arise from any cortical region.

Automatisms are quasi-purposeful motor or verbal behaviors that commonly accompany complex partial seizures. The behavior is called quasi-purposeful because it is repeated inappropriately or is inappropriate for the situation. Verbal automatisms range from simple vocalizations, such as moaning, to more complex, comprehensible, stereotyped speech.

Automatisms also may occur during non-epileptic states of confusion (eg, metabolic encephalopathy), postictus, and absence seizures. Motor automatisms are classified as simple or complex. Simple motor automatisms include oral automatisms (eg, lip smacking, chewing, swallowing) and manual automatisms (eg, picking, fumbling, patting). Complex motor automatisms are more elaborate, coordinated movements involving bilateral extremities. Examples of complex motor automatisms are cycling movements of the legs and stereotyped swimming movements. Motor behaviors often begin after seizure onset (ie, de novo automatisms). In other cases, the motor automatisms are repetitions of motor activity that began before the seizure (ie, perseverative automatisms). Bizarre automatisms such as alternating limb movements, right-to-left head rolling, or sexual automatisms may occur with frontal lobe seizures.

Seizures often begin with a brief aura (simple partial seizure) lasting seconds, which then becomes a complex partial seizure. The type of aura relates to the site of cortical onset. Temporal lobe seizures often begin with a rising abdominal sensation, fear, unreality, or d?j? vu. Parietal lobe seizures may begin with an electrical sensation, tingling, or numbness. Occipital lobe seizures may begin with visual changes such as colored lines, spots, shapes, or even loss of vision.

Temporal lobe complex partial seizures often begin with a motionless stare followed by simple oral or motor automatisms. In contrast, frontal lobe seizures often begin with vigorous motor automatisms or stereotyped clonic or tonic activity. Extratemporal lobe seizures may spread quickly to the frontal lobe and produce motor behaviors similar to those associated with frontal lobe complex partial seizures. Tonic and dystonic arm posturing may occur in the arm contralateral to the seizure focus. Sustained head or eye turning contralateral to the seizure focus may occur immediately prior to or simultaneously with clonic or tonic activity elsewhere.

Complex partial seizures often last 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Longer seizures may occur, particularly when the seizures become generalized (to frank convulsions). Complex partial status epilepticus also may occur with prolonged episodes of waxing and waning of consciousness.

Confirm that the patient does not have a non-epileptic cause for episodes of loss of consciousness, such as psychogenic non-epileptic events, syncope, transient global amnesia, migraine, or certain parasomnias.
Complex partial seizures are suggested by a history of typical seizure aura, blank stare with eyes open, unresponsiveness, and automatisms.
Quantify severity of epilepsy based on previous complications and seizure frequency.
Include responses to previous anticonvulsants or surgery.
Include previous cranial MRI, EEG, and EEG-video recording results.
Screen for possible etiologies such as brain infection, trauma, hereditary epilepsy, stroke, perinatal brain injury, cortical dysplasia, complex febrile seizure, or vascular malformation.
Obtain history from patient and a witness for any lateralized seizure symptoms, such as versive head or eye turning, stereotyped posturing, or postictal focal symptoms.
Physical:

Directed to elucidate focal cortical neurologic findings, such as the following:
Aphasia
Unilateral neglect
Apraxia
Unilateral limb weakness
Unilateral facial weakness
Increased muscle tone
Increased deep tendon reflexes
Pronator drift
Extensor plantar reflex
Causes:

Possible causes of complex partial seizures include the following:
Brain trauma
Encephalitis
Meningitis
Stroke
Perinatal brain injuries
Vascular malformations
Cortical dysplasia
Neoplasms
Febrile seizures that are unusually prolonged, frequent, or associated with focal neurologic features may increase risk for later development of complex partial seizures.
Complex partial seizures in most patients represent a symptom of underlying temporal lobe epilepsy, the cause of which is unknown. *Characteristic pathologic changes termed mesial temporal sclerosis are most often visible on brain MRI.*_


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## Inflammed (Aug 10, 2004)

Background: Frontal lobe epilepsy is characterized by recurrent seizures arising from the frontal lobes. Frequently, seizure types are simple partial or complex partial, often with secondary generalization. Clinical manifestations tend to reflect the specific area of seizure onset and range from behavioral to motor or tonic/postural changes. Status epilepticus may be associated more commonly with frontal lobe seizures than with seizures arising from other areas.

Pathophysiology: Seizures may arise from any of the frontal lobe areas, including orbitofrontal, frontopolar, dorsolateral, opercular, supplementary motor area, motor cortex, or cingulate gyrus.

Disease conditions commonly associated with frontal lobe epilepsy are frequently symptomatic, including congenital causes such as cortical dysgenesis, gliosis, or vascular malformations; neoplasms; head trauma; infections; and anoxia. More recently, genetic frontal lobe epilepsies have been identified, many with autosomal dominant inheritance.

Frequency:

In the US: The exact incidence of frontal lobe epilepsy is not known. In most centers frontal lobe epilepsy accounts for 20-30% of operative procedures involving intractable epilepsy. 
Sex: No significant gender-based frequency difference has been reported for frontal lobe epilepsy.

Age:

Symptomatic frontal lobe epilepsy may affect patients of all ages.
In a large series of cases, mean subject age was 28.5 years with age of epilepsy onset 9.3 years for left frontal epilepsy and 11.1 years for right frontal epilepsy.
CLINICAL Section 3 of 10 
Author Information Introduction Clinical Differentials Workup Treatment Medication Follow-up Miscellaneous Bibliography

History:

Patients with frontal lobe seizures may present with a clear epileptic syndrome or with unusual behavioral or motor manifestations that are not immediately recognizable as seizures. A careful history should focus on specific characteristics of the episodes, including a detailed description by eyewitnesses, time and pattern of occurrence, precipitating factors, and response to medication.
Features that help to distinguish frontal lobe seizures from nonepileptic events include stereotyped semiology, occurrence during sleep, brief duration (often <30 s), rapid secondary generalization, prominent motor manifestations, and complex automatisms. Despite this, the distinction remains very difficult to make on the basis of history alone, and patients with frontal lobe epilepsy often are directed first to psychiatrists rather than to neurologists. Details obtained about the seizure semiology may help to identify the specific frontal region of onset.
Prominent speech disturbances - May indicate dominant hemisphere involvement
Supplementary motor area (SMA) - Typically involve unilateral or asymmetric bilateral tonic posturing; may be associated with facial grimacing, vocalization, or speech arrest; seizures frequently preceded by a somatosensory aura; complex automatisms such as kicking, laughing, or pelvic thrusting may be present; responsiveness often preserved
Primary motor cortex - Usually simple partial motor seizures with clonic or myoclonic movements and preserved consciousness; jacksonian spread to adjacent cortical areas may occur, and secondary generalization is frequent; speech arrest and contralateral adversive or dystonic posturing may be present
Medial frontal, cingulate gyrus, orbitofrontal, or frontopolar regions - Complex behavioral events characterized by motor agitation and gestural automatisms; viscerosensory symptoms and strong emotional feelings often described; motor activity repetitive and may involve pelvic thrusting, pedaling, or thrashing, often accompanied by vocalizations or laughter/crying; seizures often bizarre and may be diagnosed incorrectly as psychogenic
Dorsolateral cortex - Tonic posturing or clonic movements often associated with either contralateral head and eye deviation, or less commonly, ipsilateral head turn
Operculum - Swallowing, salivation, mastication, epigastric aura, fear, and speech arrest often associated with clonic facial movements; gustatory hallucinations also may occur
Nonlocalizable frontal seizures - Rare, manifesting as brief staring spells accompanied by generalized spike/wave on EEG, which may be difficult to distinguish from primarily generalized absence seizures; may present as generalized tonic-clonic seizures without obvious focal onset
Nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy - Autosomal dominant inheritance; seizures occur mainly during sleep; characterized by marked motor manifestations, including dystonic posturing, jerking, bending, and rocking; difficult to distinguish from parasomnias
Physical: A general physical and thorough neurologic examination should be performed in all patients with epilepsy.

General examination
Signs suggestive of syndromes that may be associated with epilepsy, such as facial dysmorphisms
Skin abnormalities such as cafe-au-lait spots, hypomelanotic macules, or neurofibromas suggesting neurocutaneous syndromes
Neurologic examination
As structural lesions are common, high incidence of neurologic abnormalities in patients with frontal lobe epilepsy
Particular emphasis on the motor examination
Causes: While the majority of frontal lobe seizures are thought to be symptomatic, idiopathic/genetic forms recently have been identified. Many patients with frontal lobe seizures have no obvious lesions on MRI.

Tumors
Recent reviews indicate that the epileptogenic lesion in approximately one third of patients with refractory frontal lobe seizures is a tumor.
Common pathologies include gangliogliomas, low-grade gliomas, and epidermoid tumors. High-grade tumors more often present with headache or focal deficits, but many are associated with seizures at some time in their course.
Head trauma
Head trauma is a very frequent cause of damage to the frontal lobes. Risk of later epilepsy depends largely on the severity of trauma. The first seizure usually occurs within months, but may not occur for many years.
Pathologic examination of the frontal lobe frequently reveals meningocerebral cicatrix.
Vascular malformations
Three main types are recognized?arteriovenous malformations, cavernous angiomas, and venous angiomas.
Arteriovenous malformations and cavernous angiomas are more likely to cause seizures than venous angiomas.
Developmental lesions
With improvements in neuroimaging, cortical dysplasias increasingly are being recognized as epileptogenic lesions.
Other common developmental causes of frontal lobe seizures include hamartomas and nodular heterotopias.
Gliosis
Gliosis is identified in many pathologic specimens following surgical resection for frontal lobe epilepsy.
It may follow head trauma, neonatal anoxia, or previous resection; often no cause is identified.
Encephalitis: While encephalitis commonly produces temporal lobe epilepsy, frontal lobe seizures may occur.
Familial frontal lobe epilepsy
Autosomal dominant inherited, nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy: This type of epilepsy is associated with brief nocturnal motor seizures that often occur in clusters and typically show a good response to carbamazepine. The cause, in at least some families, appears to be a chromosome 20 mutation of a subunit of the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. An alternative site may involve a different subunit of the same receptor on chromosome 1.
Benign frontal lobe epilepsy: This is a rare form of familial epilepsy characterized by childhood onset, brief tonic seizures, and good response to carbamazepine.


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Hey guys...

Well, Soulbro, I wouldnt worry too much. If you have a seizure disorder, the only thing you can do is take meds like you've been trying for the past year. The strobe lights during your EEG were supposed to cause a spike in your brainwaves if you have epilepsy. It still might be a plausible explanation. It wont get any worse untreated. The idea is that the DP could get worse if the epilepsy goes untreated. It just seems too coincidental to me that epileptic medicines (klonopin, lamictal) tend to work best for DP while we share all of the symptoms of a simple partial seizure in the temporal lobe. And its not a progressive brain disease....its not going to kill you. I dont think there is a case on record of a simple partial seizure killing anyone. By the way, how was your christmas? And how is college going?

Inflammed, those abstracts are all well and good. They arent what I'm talking about, though. Complex partial seizures also have physical manifestiations (such as automatisms) and the patient wont be conscious during the seizure. But in a simple partial seizure, you can walk, talk, think, and yet still experience objects changing size, hear buzzing in your ears, get an anxiety attack, and feel dizzy. And if they happen often enough starting young in life, you can get Interictal Behavior Syndrome, also known as Waxmann-Geschwind syndrome, which is just a bunch of eccentric personality traits (which most DPers happen to fit). I was looking through your list, and I do agree with you, hypoglycemia can mimic DP alot too, as can hypothyroidism, but then again, alot of things mimic heart attacks, including constipation, but doctors cant go around saying heart attacks dont exist because people get chest pains when they're constipated too. I say get each of those things ruled out if you have DP/DR....and if they're okay, get an EEG and try an anticonvulsant. Cant hurt.

What do you take now, Shelly? I'm not surpised that Xanax is helping your relative. Benzodiazepines all have an anti-epileptic effect, especially ativan and klonopin. I'm fairly positive that my DP is in my genes as well. My family has glaringly odd eccentricites which have popped up in my dad's family in each and every generation. His grandfather had a horrible temper and ended his own life at the age of 60. His father(my grandfather) had an incredibly bad temper as well, but learnt some lessons from his own father's life. My father is "hyper-religous" and has a renewal of relgion every 3 years or so. Its a cycle I see in his life. And his sister suffers from OCD and debilitating migrains. Now my 11 year old brother is complaining of dizzy spells and is having panic attacks. It reminds me of myself at his age, and of Dreamer's expreiences around the same age. My parent's took him to a doctor who started him on Zoloft, but I think its completely wrong for him. I told my dad I want him to get an EEG done as soon as possible. I think if these "attacks" get treated before his teenage years, he may be able to stem off DP. But my Dad is a stubborn man, and although he seems to beleive me, he's very slow to action. I gave him some journal articles on Temporal lobe eplilepsy, cases of OCD caused by it, case of anxiety attacks caused by it, and Interictal Behaviour syndrome and its relation to simple partial seizures. I hope Mom and Dad listen before he starts to experience a weakening of his reality....

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

Homeskooled, so why didn't the doctor say " oh that abnormality occured because of seizure activity" He told me it was nothing to worry about.

College is going pretty well, i got Two A's, a B, and a D :roll: but thats because i never studied for that class.

Christmas was good

how about you?


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Dear Soul, 
I dont know why your doctor would say that. It was probably in the "normal range", which is my complaint exactly. I think they miss all of the people with mildly abnormal problems because their looking for glaring problems that hit them over the head and say "THIS is what's wrong!". Those are good, respectable grades....well, except for that D. Dont get too many of those, and if you see one coming that cant be fixed, withdraw! Having a W on your transcript is better than having a D. But you sound like your off to a good start. Glad to hear you enjoyed Christmas...mine was OK. I still have that headache I was complaining about, but not so bad. The thyroid medicine seems to be helping me out slowly. I guess I just feel kind of lonely this christmas. Broke up with my girlfriend not long before Christmas...Oh well, hopefully things will get better. I'm just at a crossroads in my life with what I want to do. Should I go for the reality my heart wants or the one my head wants? My heart wants to move back to my hometown for a while....my head says being away from small town america is good for my future and my character. I dont know...I just feel more at ease in the area I grew up in . I dont care if there isnt as much to do as in Pittsburgh, or if the university here looks better on paper....I just feel called back home. Not sure if I should go, though.

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

can someone give me the exact symptoms of the seizure thing? TLE or Simple Partial or whatever it is??

that would be much appreciated


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

Homeskooled can you ellaborate on this please???


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Dear Soulbro, 
Settle down! This is just a hunch I have that I think alot of intractable DP states is caused by this, or something even milder which we are having trouble classifying. I'm not going to print a whole medical "abstract" on the symptoms of a simple partial (mostly because I dont think anyone reads through all of them anyways) so I'll try to explain them as I understand them. A "grand mal" seizure affects many brain areas at once, including the motor cortex, and cause the classical shaking, frothing at the mouth seizures that we find in Hollywood movies and Biblical accounts. But these only account for a portion of most seizure activity experienced by epileptics. A complex partial seizure affects several brain areas at once, and causes physical manifestations much of the time. A simple partial seizure occurs only in one or two affected areas of the brain and does not spread past them. In this way, a person can still walk and talk fine, while their "reality processor", the temporal lobe, misfires, causing them to feel deja vu, to feel disoriented, to feel nauseated, to feel angry for no apparent reason, to have visual symptoms for a short period of time, feel sweaty, flushed, have goosebumps, have a religious experience, etc....but they are all subjective experiences that noone else will notice. In detectable cases, if it goes untreated, it can cause these symptoms in-between the seizures. This is the Interictal (between seizure) Behavior Syndrome of which I spoke, or Waxmann-Geschwind syndrome. Let me know if this helps.

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

Religious experiences haha. St. John (Paul, David, who knows) was thought to have a seizure disorder as he saw god in the desert in a flash of light and he was wriggling on the ground with religious retardation.

I am currently taking an anti-convulsant fo visual seizures which I have due to lsd use. Basically like chronic acid flashbacks.


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Dear Zig, 
Yeah, that was St. Paul. Although, technically, he was blind for three days afterwards, which would be very unusual for someone with epilepsy. Are they giving you Tegretol for the HPPD? Good luck with that. I have a couple friends who suffer/ed with it. Tends to get better on its own eventually if you didnt use the hallucinogens as your drug of choice and habit.

Peace
Homeskooled


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## sleepingbeauty (Aug 18, 2004)

i talked to my psychologist today about this and she said it makes sense in my case and i should go see a neurologist.. unless my insurance doenst cover it. so im looking into that.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

My hppd was obscene in the beginning, but its waning. It pushed me into a private visual plain which makes me feel like i'm playing real life resident evil 24/7 though. I'm taking depakote...which is more for my bipolar than anything. At times the med is subtle, but times its as if i've been given a new brain, but i'm hardened to brain shifts as it happens on a daily basis without meds.


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

Homeskooled,

I'd like to pick your brains please!

I became fascinated by psychology partly because I've always found it an interesting subject and have found reading up on the subject not only fun but very helpful in understanding what is happening to me. It has helped me control symptoms and understand myself better. So, if I'm honest with myself, I'm starting my psychology degree to some extent as part of a personal development and ultimately a goal to understand everything that plagues us here on this website. I know there's a lot more to it than that, and equally enjoy reading about other aspects of psychology too.

One question I have - do you find it difficult sometimes - does researching the stuff you do send your head spinning? I know yours is more of a biological approach but even reading your post on TLE etc gets my head reeling. Im not always like this, just having a blip at the mo, but my head doesn't like to try and consolidate the relationship between the psychological aspect and the biological aspect. I guess it makes me feel less in control of my own brain. Surely the search for the answer plays with your head too?!? It probably sounds as though I'm embarking on the search for the holy grail in my degree - I am aware of my own personal issues maybe being a hindrance aswell as helping me.

Secondly, what you say about our personality types is spot on, at least for me. I cant finish tasks if having a bad day, get caught up in detail and find it very hard to focus on whats important. I've always had trouble doing essays because of this. I always thought of it as slight ADD or something. Whatever, any tips on how to block out the rambling thoughts in order to write good essays?


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## sleepingbeauty (Aug 18, 2004)

for me.. the rambling thoughts dont stop rambling. i guess one tip i can give is when im writing something.. ill take lots of notes because i cant concentrate on just one part of the essay and flow it into the next part.. im all over the page. so i write down that thought right away and figure out how to encorperate it later on. sounds basic but its really helpful for an attention deficited brain because ideas are like bats they go flying in one side of my head and out the other to be lost forever.

as far as having ADD as opposed to epilepsy.. im starting to think that maybe they might not be that different. it may even be the same thing just different people have different diagnosis's but the problem is one in the same. thats what i think it is in my case. i was positive that my problems are all ADD related. but ADD meds havent really made a dent for me. im still having the same symptoms and the same problems. id like to try an anti convulsant.. but not until i see a neurologist.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

never had a " religious experience" and most of my " symptoms" are 24/7 which really doesn't fit the whole Simple Partial Seizure criteria.

As time continues to go by, the less hope I have that I will ever get better.


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Dear G-funk, 
Good luck with the psychology degree! I try to ascribe to a biological approach because I think that people with this disorder tend to be more imaginative than most ( and this includes me) in finding ways to theorize about the cause of their illness. The problem is that this just seems to feed the DP beast, and not only that, but the perceptual warping of their minds because of their DP makes the theories more fallible. Its like blind men trying to lead blind men...I beleive that there could be, and are, objective ways to image DP and measure the cause of depersonalization, and ways to explain it in a way which takes the guilt away from the patient for "causing" yet gives it a place as an objective neurological disease.This makes it both measurable from the outside by a physician, and treatable from the outside. In this way it also helps to dispel the DP feeling that they, and everyone else, truly dont exist.

It doesnt really bother me at the moment to read up on these things. This is probably because my whole body is kind of slowed down lately from hypothyroidism....I usually feel real tired and cold, not very anxious. But I also feel more secure in the idea that my DP is an objective disease since I had my brain's metabolism imaged. It showed alot of problems in my temporal lobes, and my psychiatrist immediately knew what to give me for it.

Soulbro, I'm not trying to worry you, but my whole idea is that the 24/7 problem could be interictal behaviour syndrome, which affects people with simple partial seizures 24/7. Not all neuroligists are very knowledgeable about it....its kind of a recent development. It wasnt studied until about 1974, I believe.

Sleeping Beauty, I think its fantastic if you can make it to the neurologist. In your case, the more opinions the better. But make sure they check your blood sugar again too- the entire brain runs on glucose, so any offsetting of it can really mess with your concentration. You should try that South Beach diet, too.....

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

Homeskooled what you are doing is basically speaking on theories that you have. Do you have any evidence of these things??

I thought I had anxiety disorder????

and whats that Behavior shit you are talking about?

This is why i get so frustrated because I can never get STRAIGHT ANSWERS


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

There aren't "straight answers" to give.

There are basically two major schools of thought 
1. that most mental symptoms are Biological in cause (or neurological, or chemical, however you want to view it).
2. that most mental symptoms are psychological in cause.

Most intelligent people think it's a combination of the two. But that's it. Those are your options. There is no Answer that anyone can give you, so there is no point in being angry about it.

The things we DO know are these:
taking good care of oneself while one has mental symptoms will HELP.
eat well;
get good consistent rest; 
get some exercise; 
avoid caffeine and rec drugs and alcohol;
do SOME kind of Talk Therapy or Counseling or Group Dynamics...SOMEthing so you have guidance and support from people besides your family.
Keep moving in life, as much as humanly possible, try to not give in to hopelessness or rage. There are times you will anyway, but they don't have to be daily, and you don't have to make excuses for them and feel entitlted to them. It will NEVER help you to feel bitter and enraged about your symptoms. When you do, forgive yourself, but try very very hard to change that.

Does everyone do those things? Of course not. We want to BE fixed, not try to fix ourselves.

Whether you believe as I do, that longterm indepth therapy is the best hope you've got, or whether you agree with Homeskooled that having brain imaging done, experiement with diet, natural remedies, and different meds, etc...EITHER way, if you do the things above you will be much better off than you are right now. And if you're NOT doing them, you gotta ask yourself why?

Janine


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## Synapse (Aug 15, 2004)

Hi Homeskooled

I found your post fascinating and would explain why acupuncture with mild electric stimulation seems to be helping me.

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1329


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

Thanks for the advice Sleeping B, when I get rambling thoughts I do something like that, but when I go back to it it kind of doesn't make as much sense as I thought it did. However, it lets me 'let go' of each thought that comes in, so as not to obsess and then when I do go back to it, I can be objective about it. Sometimes I find the only answer is to just say STOP because compulsively writing stuff down sometimes feeds it to keep coming.

Homeskooled, we may be going in at different angles on this one but I find it all interesting and hope one day it can all be unified into one approach. I'm going to have to be really careful as I know most psychology students diagnose themselves etc, and thats probably based on 'normal' psychology students! The degree is a Bsc and from the sounds of it incorporates a bit of both disciplines anyway. Just hope I can concentrate and motivate myself, unlike my last degree...


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## Kelson12 (Aug 10, 2004)

JanineBaker said:


> There aren't "straight answers" to give.
> 
> There are basically two major schools of thought
> 1. that most mental symptoms are Biological in cause (or neurological, or chemical, however you want to view it).
> ...


Very well said...and I truly believe you...but what are we supposed to do when we just can't take it anymore? Like we feel like we just can't live like this. I do everything you said. I have had a problem eliminating alcohol, but haven't drank for a month and am determined to not do it at all. But, what are we supposed to do when we fear everything? When we don't feel attached to ANYTHING, not even our body? What can we do???? How can we go on????

Kelson


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

They're excellent questions, Kelson. And the truth is, I don't know how I lived this long either. The only thing I can say, from one who had this crap for decades, is that I was too scared to die.

I also forced myself to keep trying things, to keep DOING things - those were rather pitiful attempts, I quit jobs, or had to leave.....stayed home for months at a time, but always got up again and kept trying.

All we can, and that may be the answer to your question....ALL we CAN do is try. Or give up totally and die. But if we choose to live, for God's sake, KEEP DOING SOMETHING. And just know that you will have days when you can't. Then try the next day.

NOBODY can tell anyone else how to keep going.

But...when you totally get that NOTHING is going to change if you give up, you'll have more motivation to keep pushing.

J


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## Kelson12 (Aug 10, 2004)

Thanks. I am just so scared that this will never subside and it is killing me. How can I continue to live like this? Seriously? I can't go on much longer without feeling somewhat better. I've pushed myself to work out 4 times so far this week. I've continued to eat well. I continue to push myself to work. I see a doctor. I have gotten back on some meds. I haven't touched alcohol for 3-4 weeks, I try to think positive. I do everything I can do rid myself of this, yet it only gets worse. It just doesn't make any sense at all. None. None at all.

Kelson


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

Im in the same boat as Kelson


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## rob (Aug 22, 2004)

kelson - i'm in the same boat as you and sb - but have had 30 years unrelenting dp/dr - or put another way nearly twice as much of my life has been spent with dp than without it

some days/weeks/months I just get in such a black mood about all this and can't see the point in carrying on - but sometimes my mood lifts even though my dp/dr is the same - klonopin gives a bit of temporary relief - a bit recreational in its way but not a cure - but not boozing helps the most plus all the strategies you set out above with which I agree 100% - they make me feel less bad

fuckit

rob


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## Kelson12 (Aug 10, 2004)

I also have unrelenting depression and anxiety right along with my DP. It seems to me that not too many people on here suffer from intense depression. Anyone?

I am currently getting back on Zoloft in hopes that it will help, as it helped me back in the Spring and Summer.

Kelson


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## rob (Aug 22, 2004)

it was only when i stopped drinking that i realised how anxious and depressed I was nearly all the time - just sort of struggling through from one drinking session to another on ciggies and nervous energy

anti-depressants make me feel worse - evry single one


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