Intro
The invisible enemy: epilepsy or panic attack? So, how do you tell which is which? a panic attack can look like a seizure.
At any rate, they have very common signs and symptoms. Sometimes, when the panic attack is severe, it can cause a seizure.
I have only experienced panic attacks and not seizures. Subsequently, one time I saw someone have a seizure when I was in the hospital.
I know that some meds can cause seizures. Hence, I think that’s what happened to the guy I saw have a seizure.
He was just sitting there and then went sideways in the chair seizing. Likewise, he was straight as a board in the chair. Luckily he didn’t fall off before the nurse got to him.
Causes of Epilepsy
Epilepsy can have many causes, including:
Brain damage: This can be caused by prenatal or perinatal issues, such as low birth weight, trauma during birth, or loss of oxygen. It can also be caused by early oxygen deprivation, which can lead to scarring.
Brain conditions: These include strokes, brain tumors, and vascular malformations.
Infections: Hence, these include meningitis, encephalitis, HIV/AIDS, and neurocysticercosis.
Developmental disorders: These include autism and neurofibromatosis (NF).
Genetic factors: Some types of epilepsy run in families. Therefore, experts believe that genetic predisposition can combine with environmental conditions to lead to epilepsy.
Other factors: These include hardening of the arteries in the brain (atherosclerosis), Alzheimer’s disease, and withdrawal from alcohol or drugs.
However, about half of people with epilepsy don’t know the cause.
Altogether, epilepsy is abnormal electrical brain activity, also known as a seizure. It can cause periods of unusual behaviors, feelings, and sometimes loss of awareness.
Panic Attack and Seizure Symptoms
The invisible enemy: epilepsy or panic attack? Important to realize, panic attacks and seizures can have similar symptoms, including sudden onset, intense feelings, and physical reactions:
Panic Attack Symptoms
An extreme form of anxiety that can cause intense feelings of fear, nervousness, or dread, along with physical symptoms such as:
- Firstly, racing heartbeat
- Sweating
- Chills
- Fourthly, trembling or shaking
- Difficulty breathing or hyperventilation
- Dizziness or weakness
- Tingling in the hands, feet, arms, or legs
- Additionally, chest pain
- Nausea or stomach pain
- Headaches
- Hot flashes
- Lastly, feelings of disconnection from yourself or reality
Seizures Symptoms
Caused by unusual electrical discharges in the brain, seizures can include symptoms such as:
- Firstly, a sudden sense of fear or joy
- A feeling that what’s happening has happened before, known as deja vu
- Changes in awareness. Sudden loss of consciousness, brief blackout, or confusion
- Fourthly, unusual sensations. Abnormal taste or smell, hearing or seeing things that aren’t there, or deja vu
- Involuntary movements. Jerking or twitching limbs, lip smacking, repetitive movements, or whole-body stiffening or shaking
- Behavioral changes. Strange thoughts or experiences, picking at clothing, or sudden mood changes like anger, fear, or joy
- Lastly, other symptoms. Staring or unresponsiveness, breathing problems, loss of bladder or bowel control, or vomiting
Can a panic attack look like a seizure?
The invisible enemy: epilepsy or panic attack? Yes, a panic attack can look like a seizure because they can have similar symptoms.
Nonetheless, panic attacks are a sudden, intense episode of anxiety that can cause physical symptoms like sweating, hyperventilation, and a fast heartbeat.
Some types of epileptic seizures can also cause these symptoms.
Moreover, in extreme cases, hyperventilation from anxiety can even trigger a convulsion, which can make it even harder to differentiate between the two conditions.
Other conditions, like non-epileptic seizures (NES) and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES), can also have symptoms similar to seizures, but without unusual electrical activity in the brain.
NES can be caused by mental stress or physical conditions, and can include fainting and dissociative seizures.
In brief, PNES are triggered by emotional stress, and can cause full-body spasms or shaking, or twitching and jerking in the limbs.
An electroencephalogram (EEG) can help determine if an event is epileptic, non-epileptic, or something else by recording brain activity.
Can a panic attack lead to a seizure?
The invisible enemy: epilepsy or panic attack? Yes, panic attacks can sometimes trigger seizures, both epileptic and non-epileptic.
Specifically, hyperventilation, a common symptom of panic attacks, can cause a convulsion, which can lead to a seizure.
In fact, a 2022 study found that 87–100% of children with epilepsy could trigger a seizure by hyperventilating on purpose.
In sum, panic attacks and seizures can be difficult to differentiate because they share some symptoms, such as anxiety, sweating, and a fast heartbeat.
However, panic attacks are generally longer events that are only caused by anxiety, while seizures are usually shorter. Also, they can involve other symptoms like electrical activity in the brain.
In order to help determine the nature of an event, a doctor may order a brain scan, such as an MRI, to look for abnormalities.
If you have been diagnosed with epilepsy, intense anxiety can trigger seizures.
In reality, for people with underlying mental health conditions, stress and anxiety can also trigger non-epileptic seizures (NES). This is caused by mental stress or physical conditions.
Treatments for anxiety-induced seizures may include psychotherapy, mindfulness, or medication.
Difference between panic attack and seizure
The invisible enemy: epilepsy or panic attack? Straightaway, a panic attack can look like a seizure – and people with anxiety disorders have sometimes been misdiagnosed as having epilepsy.
The only way to definitively diagnose epilepsy is to undergo tests. But the following points highlight some of the main differences between panic attacks and seizures:
Length
Specifically, panic attacks typically last longer than seizures – from a few minutes, and up to half an hour.
Whereas, seizures last between a few seconds and two minutes (although it is possible to have much longer episodes).
Consciousness
On the whole, most of the time, people having panic attacks are aware of their feelings and their surroundings, and they will also be responsive to people around them.
Although, by contrast, most people who have epileptic seizures lose awareness and don’t remember the seizure itself (although people with focal aware seizures do remain partially conscious).
Repetitive movements
At this point, often (but not always) people who have epileptic seizures perform repetitive and uncontrolled movements – such as lip smacking, leg cycling, or jerking.
Undoubtedly, people with panic attacks may thrash their arms or shake, but they don’t tend to do these repetitive movements.
Age the disorder begins
People can begin having anxiety disorders and epilepsy at any age.
But it’s much more common to start having epileptic seizures during the first decade of life, in your senior years, or after a head injury.
By comparison, people are more likely to develop anxiety disorders in their late teens and early adulthood (but they can develop at other times too).
Is anxiety and stress linked to epilepsy?
At this stage, it is important to note that seizure causes and seizure triggers are different.
Triggers are situations that can bring on a seizure. For example, sleep deprivation can be a trigger while the underlying cause may be a head injury.
Emphatically, the leading causes of a seizure generally involve some sort of injury to the brain. Epilepsy is a term for the tendency to have more than one unexplained seizure.
A person is usually only diagnosed with epilepsy after they have had more than one seizure.
Consequently, stress and anxiety can cause the physical symptoms of a seizure that are not caused by abnormal changes in the electrical activity of the brain. .
Stress is also a trigger for people who have been diagnosed with epilepsy.
Many people report experiencing events more frequently when under high levels of stress. Therefore, a recent study cited stress as the number one trigger in patients with epilepsy.
Many mental illnesses, including anxiety and depression, are co-morbid conditions to epilepsy.
Subsequently, this means that many people who have epilepsy also suffer from anxiety and/or depression.
How to decrease your risk of having a seizure due to stress
At length, high levels of stress are normally due to situations that have some type of personal meaning.
Whether your stress is due to a major life event or daily life, these points of reflection may help you manage your stress:
- Take a hard look at what is stressing you out in life. Therefore, identify all of the stressors you can, no matter how big or small.
- How are you coping with the stress? If your coping mechanisms are not working, find new coping strategies.
- Make sure you are getting adequate sleep and adhering to a routine sleeping pattern. Also, avoid frequent daytime naps since they can disrupt nighttime rest. If possible, adjust your schedule so that you can adhere to a consistent sleeping pattern.
- Analyze your eating habits. While some people eat more during periods of high stress, others eat more infrequently. Consequently, there are people who experience more events if they haven’t eaten for long periods of time.
- Hence, for people who have epilepsy or non-epileptic events, understanding the relationship between stress and seizures is an important part of managing the frequency of events. Reducing stress and anxiety can significantly improve your well-being.
Sum It All Up
The invisible enemy: epilepsy or panic attack? So, now you know the similarities and differences between epilepsy and panic attack.
That’s interesting that severe panic attacks can cause seizures. Even so, I can’t imagine having that strong of a panic attack, And I think the ones that I have are bad.
Even more, good old stress can cause seizures and of course, panic attacks. Sometimes stress in itself is brought on by the person.
If you get hyped up over something or you have a bad reaction, you can stress yourself out. Therefore, you just need to stop (picture a stop sign) and zen out.
Hence, if you can control the stress and live a peaceful existence, life would be grand. For seizures, if you have a brain condition, that’s another story.
I try to live my life positively even through the anxiety and panic attacks. Therefore, if you do that, it lessens the impact of the two I mentioned. Positivety=emotional balance. Until next time…
Articles About Epilepsy and Panic Attacks
-Anxiety and epilepsy
-Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizure (PNES)
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24517-psychogenic-nonepileptic-seizure-pnes
-Panic attack vs. seizure: similarities and key differences
Have a Good One,
Cindee Murphy, One Voice In The Vastness Of Emotions
“I’m important. I matter. I can do anything. I’m a sexy, strong woman that happens to have epilepsy. Do you get it? I have epilepsy but it’s not who I am.”– Ray Robinson
“Epilepsy can, in some circumstances, be enabling – not just disabling – through the stimulation and enhancement of artistic expression”. -Jim Chambliss
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