# Depersonalization or Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE)?



## sonickid23 (Jul 5, 2007)

Hello all,
i've seeing many Dr.S over the last 3 weeks and no one seems to be able to conclusivley decided what exactly i'm going through. Perhaps, someone here can give some helpful words.

Here's the backstory.
About 3 weeks ago, during a routine day at work, with nothing out of the ordinary, I experience an "episode" where I was suddenly overcome with fear, panic, and feeling as if I was passing out or dying. I did not black out, however my heart began to race, I felt fevered, my hands trembled like I have never seen in my life, I was sweating, and I was unable to stand. After a few minutes, these initial symptoms began to subside...However, I felt completely dissoriented and disconnected from what was going on around me. I began to cry because the feeling was so dissorienting and unfamiliar that I was completely panicked. I can only equate the feeling afterward to when smoking marijuana but without any sort of euphoria. Just very fuzzy/dreamy. I just remember I kept saying "something is not right with me. Something is not right"
i left work only to return the next day fearing that the same thing was about to happen. I left work to see a Dr. She assessed that it was most likely a panic attack. She prescribed me xanax and blood pressure medicine being that my bp was veryyy elevated. Then she took an ekg of my heart just to make sure, of I don't know what.
Sooo...The ekg came back irregular....So she referred me to a cardiologist.

During the course of the next week or two I continued to feel like I was consistently walking or floating around in a dream state and felt very disconnected from myself. Very surreal.
Also, a couple of days I suffered from pretty severe depression which eventually went away.
Soooo...I saw the cardiologist...He took another ekg of my heart, an ultrasound of my heart, and a 24 hour urine collection. All of which came back perfect. He concluded that the irregular ekg must have been because the nurse incorrectly administered the test. I also returned to the first Dr. Who took bloodwork to rule out hypoglycemia or a thyroid disorder. Which came back perfect.
Then I explained to her how I was still "trapped in this state" and began to experience wierd head pressure near the front of my head which made my eyes sore. I also began to notice that the way I perceived light and dark and indoors and outdoors was some how different, things were altogther just kinda foggy and it was hard to visually focus on things. Soooo
she sent me to a nuerologist. Who administered some sort of wierd sobriety-like test where I had to follow her finger and walk in a straight line and stuff. After an interview and revealing to her that I had a history with drug experimentation (which I will get into) that I should go in for an mri. She also did some sort of test on my head where I had to wear this wierd sorta hairnet thing with electrodes and she flashed lights in my eyes. In the end both the mri and other test came back normal.
Now here is where i'm worried. She now wants to rule out a condition she called "partial temporal complex epilepsy". She wants me to go in for an mra and stay in patient for 2 days to monitor my brain. Now the experience i've had with this particular specialist has been awful!. She is consistently late for appointments and sometimes misses them all togther, often leaves the room to attend to the mailman, whatever...Its pretty ridiculous. I'm actually considering getting a second opinion. The week before she suggested these things I was feeling much better. No head pressure, the fogginess was much better, and I just felt more "in tune" with myself. I was only taking the xanax maybe once a week when I felt like I may have another panic attack. So that is why i'm really questioning her diagnosis, which the next day I feel like i'm right back in that wierd dream state. After doing some research online i'm not totally convinced. And came across a condition called depersonalization or derealization, and am pretty suprised she didn't bring this up as a possiblilty, considering I feel it described my syptoms to a "t". Noww.....I in college exprimented with a few drugs (marijuana, cocaine, ketamine, exstacy, shrooms)...However it was never habitual use, maybe once or twice, and was about 5-6 years ago. However, I was a habitual pot smoker for probably the last two years (i would smoke later in the evening to help relax me and to fall asleep). Since, the first episode I have quite smoking. Soooooo....What does everyone think? I felt pretty relieved before meeting the nuero for my mri results as I was pretty much writing it all off as stress and anxiety, and then as soon as I left it was like it started all over again. If anyone has some words of advice or expertise please pass it on. This is beginning to get very tiring.


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## jimmyb (May 9, 2007)

I personally doubt very much that it is temporal lobe epilepsy and more than likely to do with the weed you smoked that caused this episode, I think you are suffering from DP/DR but I'd still get it properly checked out. Docs aren't much cop these days.

With epilepsy surely the symptoms would be on or off rather than you starting to get better?


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## suz (Mar 26, 2007)

TLE is something that should be ruled out if you present with symptoms of DP/DR. Go along for the test, just to make sure. I'm still trying to get these sorts of examinations done so make the most of the chance you have.

:wink:


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2007)

suz said:


> TLE is something that should be ruled out if you present with symptoms of DP/DR.


I'll second this... you gotta be sure... get yourself a EEG scan.


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## J. (Apr 2, 2007)

The checked me out for eplepty. But i had dp/dr chronic. No attacks. so that you cant have eppelety then ensured me.

So if you have attacks, that could be the case.

Just to make sure. 
have an eeg.


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2007)

Good point J... If you have DR/DP Chronically... you're less likley to have temporal lobe epilepsy... although this is still "no" excuse not to be checked out.


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

The Cambridge DP scale can usually pick out the difference between a person with TLE and DP/DR just by your responses.

E-mail me at [email protected], I will give you the test and show you the results from Dr. Serrios et al. and how the TLE patients scored versus DP/DR.

This is not *ME* diagnosing you, but providing you a tool to present to your doctor.

- David


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