Life Flash

Temporal lobe epilepsy

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran explored the neural basis of the hyperreligiosity seen in TLE using galvanic skin response, which correlates with emotional arousal, to determine whether the hyperreligiosity seen in TLE was due to an overall enhanced emotional response, or if the enhancement was specific to religious stimuli (Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998). By presenting subjects with neutral, sexually arousing and religious words while measuring GSR, Ramachandran was able to show that patients with TLE showed enhanced emotional responses to the religious words, diminished responses to the sexually charged words, and normal responses to the neutral words. These results suggest that the medial temporal lobe is specifically involved in generating some of the emotional reactions associated with religious words, images and symbols.

As Eve LaPlante discusses in her book, Seized, the intense emotions, sensory experience including vibrancy of colors, and particular mental state provoked by temporal lobe abnormalities may have contributed to the creation of significant works of art. A number of well-known writers and artists are known, or in many cases suspected to have had temporal lobe epilepsy, aggravated, in some cases, by alcoholism. They include Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoevsky (whose novel The Idiot features an epileptic protagonist, Prince Myshkin), Gustave Flaubert, Philip K. Dick, Sylvia Plath and contemporary author Thom Jones. Peter O'Leary has also discussed this in his "Gnostic Contagion: Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness". Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti has discussed the significance of Lewis Carroll's epilepsy online and in a forthcoming book on the subject.

A convulsion is a medical condition where body muscles contract and relax rapidly and repeatedly, resulting in an uncontrolled shaking of the body.^[1] Because a convulsion is often a symptom of an epileptical seizure, the term convulsion is sometimes used as a synonym for seizure. However, not all epileptic seizures lead to convulsions, and not all convulsions are caused by epileptic seizures. I have the uncontrollable shaking and it probably has caused muscle skeletal aching.

Brain burn-my term. I think my first two (possibly only) with no meds caused damage to certain areas of my temporal lobe. I can feel my memories reconfiguring. Almost like moving. Some studies have shown abnormalities of the hippocampus on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in status epilepticus, which supports the theory that prolonged seizures damage the brain.^[7]^[8]^[9]

I am particularly interest to the heightened and diminished responses to religious and sexually charged words. That is me and it is peculiar because it normally represents a conscious dissonance.

I am thinking that because I do not lose consciousness that I am experiencing Simple Partial Seizures (SPS) that are elevating. That would make them amendable to drugs as opposed to surgery. But I do think my latest episodes are indicating a transition to Complex Partial Seizures (CPS) which is why I am not driving. (Because judgment is impaired, persons experiencing CPS may not legally drive vehicles for periods of time which are set by local governments worldwide.)

An aura is the perceptual disturbance experienced by some migraine sufferers before a migraine headache, and the telltale sensation experienced by some people with epilepsy before a seizure. It often manifests as the perception of a strange light, an unpleasant smell or confusing thoughts or experiences.

I experienced one today. It was the first onset to a seizure (as I prefer to call them) since I have been on meds which will be adjusted to an anticonvulsant as opposed to a benzodiazapine. I have a room at the clinic I can go to to determine if I will full blow. I did not thank God. I am getting treatment none to early. Should have been 2006 but oh well.

An aura sensation can include some or a combination of the following:

Visual Changes.
- Bright lights.
- Zigzag lines.
- Distortions in the size or shape of objects.
- scintillating scotoma
  - Shimmering, pulsating patches, often curved.
  - Tunnel vision
- scotoma
  - Blind or dark spots in the field of vision.
  - Curtain-like effect over one eye.
  - Slowly spreading spots.
- Kaleidoscope effects on visual field
- Total temporary monocular (in one eye) blindness (in retinal migraine)^[2].
Auditory changes
- Hearing voices or sounds that do not exist: true auditory hallucinations.
- Modification of voices or sounds in the environment: buzzing, tremolo, amplitude modulation or other modulations.
Strange smells (Phantosmia).
Feelings of numbness or tingling on one side of the face or body.
Feeling separated from one's body.
Feeling as if the limbs are moving independently from the body.
Feeling as if one has to eat or go to the bathroom.
Anxiety or fear.
Nausea.
Weakness, unsteadiness.
Saliva collecting in the mouth.
Being unable to understand or comprehend spoken words during and after the aura.
Being unable to speak properly, despite the brain grasping what the person is trying to verbalize. (Aphasia)

Do you get these? I am learning to determine these a precursors and taking appropriate steps to not elevate the experience. Today I felt like Alice in Wonderland 10 feet tall in a 2 foot room. So I got down there as quickly as possible because I knew what was happening.

I am not that worried about the testing. I have terrible upper left side aches but I think I did suffer some brain damage as I stated. I trip on the heart issue but I was assured that is NOT a problem. I am confident with the team I am developing (would not disinclude you-thanks).

I think my flashbacks are real but distorted. For example, are all these people connected besides by me and my recollections. But I can't go into a lot of that right now because of my incident today. I had a breakdown after Barbara's kidnap and rape and the dissolution of Sean in the household. I became more receptive to the guinea pig phenomena. I also think this hardcore recollection was either a inducement or a byproduct of the onset of Complex Partial Seizures (CPS). And I do know that Heinlein's thinking was radically changing while I was around him. Also, psybio was all about drugs at that time. I am grouping my thoughts in the with labels in the blog. to tie in the people and personnas who were on campus at the time. I think that my left handedness and the area affected tie into my religious sexual programming. My cases of point may be too graphic sexually but you can get a picture. Now with religion, left to right reading is English as opposed to Hebrew/Arabic (Semitic). Reading Hebrew was a partial trigger. It was disorienting.

The prevailing wisdom on why Hebrew (and Arabic) are written right to
left has to do with the fact that they started out as language that
were chiseled on stone tablets and the mechanics of holding the chisel
in the left hand and hammering with the right lead to the right to
left orientation.

Here is another cofactor for me because of the massive onset in May

Panic disorder may coexist with epilepsy

Panic disorder may coexist with epilepsy and be a significant source of distress or disability. An aura of anxiety or fearfulness (ictal fear) may be confused with panic attacks. Recent studies have reported evidence, demonstrated by positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, suggesting that the lesion in panic disorder may be in temporal lobes. The findings lend additional support to the idea that these illnesses may be related.

In line with earlier reports, a recent paper, to be published in Journal of Anxiety Disorders (available online 13 June 2005) posits the existence of a subgroup of panic attacks with the clinical features of the epileptic aura, and so must be considered and diagnosed as simple partial seizures (SPSs) with a psychic content. In the paper, research is presented to support a hypothesis that panic attacks, when they have the same clinical signs as the epileptic consciousness, should be diagnosed as partial seizures with a psychic content.

After setting out the four clinical signs defining it (suddenness, automatic nature, great intensity and strangeness), the authors made an extensive review of the literature in search of scientific information to support the hypothesis, which reveals a wealth of concurring scientific evidence, at both the clinical and preclinical levels, to support the hypothesis presented in this paper.

The authors found several major sets of information to support and reinforce their hypothesis that panic attacks occurring with the clinical signs characterizing the aura are to be interpreted as SPSs.

The authors conclude by saying that panic attacks observed clinically with the features of suddenness, strangeness, great intensity and automatic nature should be interpreted as SPSs.

They stress that the next step will be to fix scales and standard clinical interviews in order to objectify presence of such signs and thereby distinguish panic attacks of an epileptic nature from other, more reactive, acute anxiety disorders.

Epilepsy: Epilepsy is a neurological disorder causing repeated seizures or fits in the patient. This can happen to anybody without age difference. The symptoms of the condition may be having inappropriate sensations and emotions, behaving inappropriately, or muscle spasms and loss of consciousness. The seizures that occur in young children are called Febrile convulsions.

Sorry about my cut and paste. Makes my emails a little weird. My idea of a blog would be two brothers so far away and different become so close. And not so far away and different. It also adds a touch of the ancient art of communication. We could call but that would change the discourse. I'm sure of it. You become part of one's mind when you write. We have lost that. The other interesting aspect of email is it is instant and multidimensional. Most people don't write anymore. They jabber. They don't think when they talk. I have to be honest when I write. I am basically digital in my thought storage and improvisational in my communication. I anticipate and manipulate responses in verbal conversations. That has to do with talking my way out of peculiar situations. Or sometimes talking myself into them! But we have a heck of a lot of material.

Anyway you know me well now. My life has been peculiar. I'm not overtly sexual. I think it has to do with my detached emotions to sexuality. I have done a lot of drugs but I am not a burnout. I have subjective religious overtones in my thinking. Now I am beginning to realize my fullness has to do with a brain abnormality? Somehow it makes me more human. Unique.

I came unraveled online. Dog finally said to me today he realized how terrified I was in all this. That is why he is a good friend. Charlie got caught in a true electrical storm and it terrified him. I wasn't looking for anyone but I found someone. Or vice versa. You touched me by caring. That simple. Kukua from Ghana doesn't know what happened and I won't tell her. "Dr" Berstein thinks I'm gay because I get real with women.

I'm a pop culture pimple that popped. I just want to get better but not too if you get my drift. But I can write now because I can tap my wellspring of distinctness instead of similarity which is the art of pop culture.

You have an interesting mind. That intrigues me in men. It's what I call intellectual eroticism as opposed to sexual eroticism but it took me a long time to understand the difference. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Long day

Love you and thank you. By the way have you read Philip K. Dick?

Tests To Be Done	Ordered	Ordering Provider
T4, TOTAL (THYROXINE)	06/25/09	Allan A. DOROSIN MD
TSH	06/25/09	Allan A. DOROSIN MD
MR HEAD SEQ WITH CONTRAST	06/25/09	Allan A. DOROSIN MD
ECG AND INTERPRETATION (ORDERS ONLY) SZ	06/25/09	Allan A. DOROSIN MD

Dorosin is doing full workup including tumors. And electrocardiogram for heart. and thyroid. He is a good guy. He did not have to order all that but he is thorough and kind. I am glad I do not come across as strange but humane. So I am glad I wore underwear. I do better without my dick dangling. Sorry! But formality escapes me on days like these and I love you as a friend as well as a brother. Good night.

One last thing my brain on music. lol