Quote:
Originally Posted by fern46
I don't know a lot about it either. I am doing my best to learn as I go.
I'm glad you mentioned schizophrenia. My husband was convinced that is what I had. My paranoia, delusions and hallucinations were all severe. Same for my mother. My husband was a little thrown when they diagnosed me as bipolar. I was manic, but it was more than that.
I'm sorry about your mother. That must have been very scary for her.
I wonder how TLE would be diagnosed. A neurologist?
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I'm sorry you've had such a stressful road to reaching your diagnosis, fern. In answer to your question, I was sent to a neurologist and it was a neurologist that diagnosed me with simple partial seizures. I had had an EEG a couple years before.I was only diagnosed after a sleep deprivation EEG. The others had normal results. Isn't it interesting that the sleep deprivation one showed the abnormality?
I saw two neurologists and wasn't happy with either. I ended up consulting with an epileptologist who was a particular specialist in EEGs. I had a long interview with him and he talked at length with my psychiatrist. He told me that my simple partial seizure diagnosis was not definitive, even with the sleep deprivation EEG results. Actually, the neurologist I saw often said some "weird" symptoms seemed more psych-based than seizure-based. My psychiatrist disagreed. The epileptologist wanted me to have a 2 to 6 day in-hospital EEG, but my husband didn't want me to, so I didn't do it. That angered my psychiatrist. My reasons for not were a) the costs, and b) he wanted to temporarily take me off my very high dose of Tegretol XR. The latter was frightening because hubby and I feared my bipolar would go berserk again. Plus, Tegretol stopped musical hallucinations I had experienced. Musical hallucinations were discussed on this forum this week, but I can't emphasize enough how disturbing they became for me.
I had a number of weird symptoms along with more typical bipolar symptoms. That's what inspired all of the neurologists, and even a PET scan. I had an IOP psychiatrist who shockingly told me "I have never in my whole career seen anything like that before!" He was likely referring to a severe violent outburst I had that ended with me speaking literal gibberish for several minutes. It was way beyond rapid speech. It was incomprehensible. I was conscious and remember it all. There were other weird symptoms. I don't know. Severe manic symptoms? Odd psychosis presentation? Other?
Note: I had very typical bipolar type 1 episodes throughout my life, since age 14. The only period when I had these "weird" symptoms was between ages 35 and maybe 40. My very worst bipolar episodes were between ages 33 and 41/42. I am now 48.