Deja vu - seizures?

[Jotia]

So yesterday I was on Reddit scrolling though and someone was talking about deja vu they get. I clicked because I find things like that interesting but the top comment was something like “get tested for epilepsy”. Stupidly I google what this meant and learnt getting deja can mean you are having seizures especially if you get it a few times a month rather than a few times a year. I start to panic cuz I get it pretty often, I’m no sure how much. Maybe once a month, it’s been more recently. But I wouldn’t say I normally get it more than a few times a year.

So I posted on a health anxiety sub Reddit about it and two people were like “you’re fine” and I sorta got over it. Fast forward to the morning I wake up to a reply from someone going into detail about her past with Deja vu, and how she ended up having a seizure and I should get tested. She went in to detail about how since she was a kid she would get these dream like deja vu where it felt like she had done everything 100 times then it turned into 4/5 times a day until she was found having seizure in bed. Now I’m super freaked out and feel physically sick. Every moment I’m terrified I’m going to get deja vu, any weird feeling I get makes me anxious.

[Fishmanpa]

You're digging there Jotia :shades: Although I believe most of us have gotten that feeling, it's validity is not arguable as science has shown otherwise. Based on that alone, to associate it with a physical condition like epilepsy and seizures is just not in the realm of reality.

Positive thoughts

[RadioGaGa]

No.

The deja-vu associated with temporal lobe epilepsy is intense. It's not just your standard deja-vu. It will be like a trip on acid, frankly.

It would start off and you'd have INTENSE deja-vu; accompanying this would likely be olfactory hallucinations ("phantom smells"), a rising in your stomach like being on a roller-coaster, you might lose the ability to speak and perhaps even have an absence seizure following the event ("complex partial seizure"). The whole event would last anywhere up to 5 minutes and would leave you dazed and confused, possibly up to an hour in severe cases.

You're describing "normal" deja-vu.

You do not have epilepsy.

Good luck

[RadioGaGa]

Also you must be careful when reading epilepsy forums - or comments by people with epilepsy (I do not mean offence to anyone reading this who has epilepsy), but I have found they almost always attribute any normal "glitch in the matrix" they have to epilepsy. I've personally seen the following on epilepsy forums, back in my severe health anxiety/brain tumour fear days:

* They feel a bit tired - epilepsy
* They forgot someones name - epilepsy
* Their mind went blank - epilepsy
* They had a bit of deja vu - epilepsy
* They woke up feeling tired - epilepsy

The above are all normal happenings, even in non-epileptics. IMHO, none of the above are caused by epilepsy in epileptic people. They just "happen"

[elitejcx]

So yesterday I was on Reddit scrolling though and someone was talking about deja vu they get. I clicked because I find things like that interesting but the top comment was something like “get tested for epilepsy”. Stupidly I google what this meant and learnt getting deja can mean you are having seizures especially if you get it a few times a month rather than a few times a year. I start to panic cuz I get it pretty often, I’m no sure how much. Maybe once a month, it’s been more recently. But I wouldn’t say I normally get it more than a few times a year.

So I posted on a health anxiety sub Reddit about it and two people were like “you’re fine” and I sorta got over it. Fast forward to the morning I wake up to a reply from someone going into detail about her past with Deja vu, and how she ended up having a seizure and I should get tested. She went in to detail about how since she was a kid she would get these dream like deja vu where it felt like she had done everything 100 times then it turned into 4/5 times a day until she was found having seizure in bed. Now I’m super freaked out and feel physically sick. Every moment I’m terrified I’m going to get deja vu, any weird feeling I get makes me anxious.

As some who used to suffer from epilepsy the feeling of deja vu from epilepsy and the deja vu that you'll get occasionally are not very alike. Any feeling of deja vu I used to get prior to seizure was often accompanied by an aura. An aura is a strange state which makes everything in your head will feel very fuzzy and dreamlike which can sometimes give the odd sensation of familiarity or "deja vu". If you're having prolonged moments of dreamlike light headiness with deja vu (it's common with migraines too), then contact a doctor and get it checked out, but if it's fleeting I would say that it's nothing. Hope this helps.