panicking about epilepsy website

[sedalia]

I have been having anxiety attacks and in between have all the symptoms listed, shaky, lightheaded etc etc....I was searching for something on soya milk and came across an epilepsy website where someone mentioned something called "auras" which are apparently like panic attacks, and which people get before they get epilepsy. Now I'm terrified I don't have anxiety at all but the onset of epilepsy. I'm already torturing myself about it being ms or a brain tumour and now this. I really wish I hadn't read it. Please help. I've been in tears all day as it is.

[AntiLove_SuperStar]

Auras are not a precursor to epilepsy itself, but are precursors in some people to seizures. Meaning its not a case of getting auras and later developing epilepsy say a few weeks later..but an aura can be a seizure warning...as in one in the next few hours/minutes.

Some people get auras alone, and this in fact can be a migraine headache but without the pain, which isn't too uncommon.

If its any consolation, I've had several of the fullout, scary epileptic fits in my lifetime that I'm on medication for. I had NO warning for any of them! No aura, nothing.

There is a kind of epilepsy called Temporal Lobe Epilepsy which doesn't look as dramatic typically as the conventionally thought of "thrashing on the floor stuff". In this case, the seizures take the form of several strange feelings, such as overwhelming deja vu, smelling something that isn't there, viewing the body from outside, etc. If you get these sorts of feelings a lot, its more likely to be anxiety but you could go to your doctor and see what they say.

Its such a grey area, the brain (haha) so these are generalizations, going on what my neurologist and books on the subject say.

[Utility]

Hi

You don't have epilespy, you just have a dose of health anxiety - like so many of us on this site. Don't google your symptoms, you will just end up homing in on websites that are crammed full of irrational fears.

You are just part of the "worried well"