A new letter from the Capitol’s attending physician says the Senate minority leader is not suffering from a seizure disorder, short strokes known as TIA or movement issues like Parkinson’s disease.
A new letter from the Capitol’s attending physician says the Senate minority leader is not suffering from a seizure disorder, short strokes known as TIA or movement issues like Parkinson’s disease.
Even if they were focal seizures it’s possible the mri and a routine eeg were normal. A 30 minute EEG sometimes shows changes in between seizures in people who have them but not always. If you catch an actual seizure during the eeg that’s almost always abnormal though. My money is still on focal seizure. It’s entirely possible his doctors could still suspect these are focal seizures and still say “no evidence of” a seizure disorder and still be technically not lying for the above reasons. I’m not sure it’s a huge scandal though, most seizures go away with medication, and a rare episode of speech arrest isn’t exactly disabling. I’d be more interested if he had cognitive issues like Feinstein or something.
I have focal seizures and multiple EEGs came back totally fine. I got an epilepsy diagnosis when my mom took a vid of me having a seizure and showed it to the doctor
Yeah exactly. There’s a misconception that a routine EEG done between seizures will always be abnormal, which is often not the case for focal onset epilepsy (by far the most common type). Presumably the EEG during the seizure would have been abnormal, but this isn’t always done, especially if the episodes aren’t frequent, can’t live your life hooked up to an EEG waiting for an event. If events are frequent and there’s a concern for non-epileptic attacks which can appear very similar, sometimes people are admitted to the hospital and monitored until one happens. Sometimes the best way is just making sure it’s clinically compatible with seizures (the video was a smart thing to do and probably very helpful to your doctor), and then see if an anti seizure medication treats them.
My mom was admitted to a hospital and monitored when she started having focal seizures. It took her a long while to find a good medication to treat her seizures. I took about a year to find effective medication.