Prognosis
This is something I get asked frequently. Unfortunately for the askers as well as myself I don’t have an answer. In order to understand the limited answer, I do have you’ll have to bear with me while I explain some background. For starters, psychogenic non-epileptic seizures aren’t seizures. Seizures are essentially an electrical storm in your brain. The things you see a person doing during a seizure are a result of that storm. The non-epileptic part of the name is referring to that lack of electrical storm. Psychogenic is defined as having a psychological origin or cause rather than a physical one. Yeah that’s right even though most people only hear the seizure portion of the name it’s actually a pysch condition. That in itself was a hard for me to come to terms with.
Back on track, prognosis. The idea in treating psychogenic non-epileptic seizures is not fool proof. The idea is that a traumatic event triggers the condition. In order to treat the condition, you look for triggers which often have to do with the traumatic event. Lastly through therapy you work on your issues with the traumatic event and that’s the end.
Given that I enjoy being a tad stubborn I don’t exactly fit into the box the is psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. Before I explain that I’d like to acknowledge my bias. I still wish and hope that this is a physical condition. I want to be able to take a pill and make it go away. I don’t want to have to deal with the stigma of a psych condition, a condition not everyone agrees exists. (yes, really!) Alright lets start with the electrical activity portion. After years of reading up on my condition I’ve learned a few things. Just because an egg doesn’t show an electrical storm, doesn’t mean there isn’t one there. From my understanding, it can be in a deeper part of the brain. Next, the traumatic event. My condition began in Nov. 2012. Sadly, my mother passed away suddenly Aug. of that same year. I’ve been told by so many doctors this is clearly the traumatic event that trigger this condition. I have a couple of problems with this theory. While losing a parent is certainly devastating in any terms, I don’t think it qualifies as traumatic. If losing my mom was indeed the event that started all this, why did my condition start in Nov. when I was I finally starting to get back to some sort of normal. If losing my mom is the traumatic event then all my triggers should revolve that in some way. The problem with that? I have absolutely no clue what my triggers are. I’ve kept the journals and shown them to the specialists and no one has found a pattern. My last argument against not fitting in the box is psychogenic non-epileptic seizures is a diagnosis of exclusion. This means they couldn’t find anything else so it must be this. I’d like to point out that just because you can’t find it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I digress, essentially my prognosis is unknown. I know what should happen with this condition. I’ve read the statistics that say the longer you have this condition the less likely you’ll be free of it. I just don’t know, no one does. For now, its day to day until hopefully something changes for the better.
I want to finish up with encouraging you all to ask questions! Keep them coming!
