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Partial SZ with bradycardia

Hey everyone,

I have a fairly recent questionable seizure-like activity that started in 2021, and im a 28yr female. It started when I had an intense deja-vu episode while driving and felt tired after, then slowly progressed in severity and frequency until I had what must have been a bigger "event" for lack of a better term in my sleep that resulted in me waking up and I had just bitten my tongue so hard I had blood dripping onto the pillow, was dizzy and had the same feeling I had as I normally do after these deja-vu episodes, and also had voided in my sleep. I never had that issue even as a small kid and had never wet the bed since I was literally in diapers no matter how full my bladder was when I woke up.
Since then I have had three head CTs (only one with contrast) and one MRI and luckily they all came back negative.
I am still getting these episodes around my cycle, usually the week leading up to it and worsening in frequency around the day of, then they slowly dissipate but usually only after I've had a "big" even that results in me passing out. It's odd and it throws off every cardiologist, neurologist, and ER doc that I say I have this intense deja vu sensation and then bradycardia following it. The few times I have stayed standing during it my heart rate drops so low I end up fainting, then waking up on the floor. This has happened twice at work already and one resulted in me hitting my head on the bottom of an IV pole.
Miraculously, none of my big events have been witnessed. Even when I fell and hit my head, no other nurse was around and I ended up just calling out from the floor when I saw my coworker walk by and they walked me down to the ER. Lack of sleep and stress or my period are definitely correlated with these, and the only thing I can possibly think of a cause for these is the covid vaccine (I worked in a covid ICU and would actually get anxiety attacks over contracting covid and accidentally condemning another human to the miserable disease I was watching every day). I have always been healthy, not even had seasonal allergies. Goodness, I don't even have a dairy or gluten intolerance. It is so odd for this to seemingly come out of the blue and the vaccine is the only thing that changed in my life aside from stress, whether it's emotional, physical, or mental.

Has anyone experienced these "awake" seizures (if that's what they are) and had them confirmed as seizures? My cardiologist was so sure it wasn't a cardiology problem which I agree because this severe bradycardia ONLY happens 30 seconds to a minute after I get in this strange trance state of deja vu. I can think and talk to people through it, but don't ask me the date or a math question because I won't be able to answer those correctly during these episodes. I am just looking to see if anyone has had anything close to my experience because I confuse every doctor I see but they do agree it seems to be neurologically based 🙁

  1. Thank you for being brave enough to share your story with us. I can't imagine how scary and frustrating it is to experience those things, especially at work. Hopefully some of our other community members can chime in with their experiences, but in the meantime, we do have an article on less-known seizure symptoms that you may find helpful or able to relate to. You can read it here: https://epilepsydisease.com/clinical/signs-of-a-seizure
    We hope you find some answers and are sending gentle hugs.
    Warmly, Corene (team member)

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