floorflopper
PEB Forum Regular Member
I just received my IPEB results of 20% rating discharge with separation pay for "epilepsy like" symptoms. I have until Monday to say if I want to appeal or not. Any advice?
My story follows:
I woke up and started getting dressed to go to the gym. As I was leaning over and started to pull my pants on a strange warm feeling started at my fingers and swept up my left arm. Once the warmth hit my shoulder the feeling spread out and descended down my torso and into my legs. It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of warm water down my back and everywhere the water touched went numb and lifeless. I was initially standing up but as the warmth hit my legs they began to buckle. I tried to fight the feeling as hard as I could, but I crumpled to the ground and ended up laying face down on the bedroom floor. As I lay on the floor my body was completely paralyzed except for my eyes. My body was covered in an amazing comfortable warm feeling. I felt like my whole body was being firmly squeezed by a perfectly warm blanket. It felt very good except that it was very scary because despite the physical symptoms my mind knew that something was horribly wrong. I thought I was dying. I struggled and fought the feeling for a few minutes and eventually I was able to crawl onto my knees and began to yell for help. I thought I was experiencing a heart attack because I had a tingling feeling in my left arm and I had heard that this was a symptom of a heart attack.
My girlfriend got out of bed as I walked to the 2nd bedroom door. She was in a complete state of confusion because she had no idea of what was going on and I was hysterical. She later said she initially thought I had been stabbed because when she walked to the door I was holding my left arm to my chest and yelling for her to call 911. As she got to the door where I was standing, a new symptom hit me; everything in the room appeared normal, but as I moved my left arm from right to left it seemed like I was looking at flashing photos of the endpoints of the motion, but I did not see any of the intermediate motion. It was as though my arm disappeared in one location and appeared in another. I was fully mentally lucid and awake through the whole experience and even though others around me were confused I was directive on what needed to be done. I began to walk through the house in search of aspirin because I knew it was helpful if I was having a heart attack. My girlfriend gave the details to the 911 operator. I walked with her in tow into the second bathroom, the kitchen, and finally the master bathroom without finding any aspirin. I heard someone at the door (I had unlocked the door when I had walked to the kitchen earlier because I realized the medical personnel would need to get into the house when they arrived). I walked from the bed to the bedroom door and from there could see that a police officer was standing at the door. As he started to enter the house I walked out of the bedroom and the warm feeling began to hit me again. I started yelling for help, but it clearly confused the officer because he stopped short at the door and just stood in the doorway looking back and forth at me, in the living room collapsing to the floor, and out into the yard at the flashing lights/siren of an ambulance. As I lay on the floor I was able to move more this time than the first and I continued to yell for help but the officer just stood there, waiting.
Finally a group of about five paramedics rushed in the house and began to attend to me. As they began to give me vital checks my left arm began to flash again. Whenever I would think about something my arm would be there, I thought about my chest and I looked down but my arm was already curled up and grasping my chest by I had not even wanted it to move there. The paramedics got me to my feet and we began to go towards the front door. I thought there was a paramedic behind me and I turned to look but my arm was already there grasping him, I stared in disbelief because I did not know my arm had moved there. As we got closer to the door I felt the warmth coming again and started to yell fearfully, “it’s coming again, it’s coming again.” Then my knees buckled again and I fell to the floor for a third time. While the paramedics began to check my vitals and responsiveness again my left arm began to move on its own. The arm was completely extended and waved slowly from left to right in front of my body and the fingers on my left hand fluttered up and down erratically. I was lying on my back and the paramedics wanted to see how hard I could squeeze my hands, I could control my right hand fairly well, but it took a lot of concentration to get my left arm to stop its random motion and to squeeze my hand, any momentary distraction and it would begin to do random orbits again. Whenever someone would touch me I felt like someone injected ice cold water into my veins at the site of contact and radiated from there. The paramedics soon brought in a stretcher and asked me if I could get onto it on my own, I tried but I did not have the strength and I felt like I was unstable and would fall again to they picked me up and put me on the stretcher. The paramedics picked me up and carried me to the ambulance and put me in the back with one of the paramedics. As we headed towards the hospital the paramedic began to check my functions again. He had me grab with my right hand, then left then push with my left foot. However, when I tried to move my leg it was like looking at a piece of wood, no matter how hard I tried it would not move at all, it was completely paralyzed. We moved on to my right foot and it moved fine.
The ride to the hospital is about 20 minutes and along the way I continued to try to move my left leg. Eventually my toes moved a little bit and slowly full motion returned by the time we reached the hospital. However, along the way I noticed that my hands were different colors; my right hand was normal, but my left was a strange ashy green/gray color. I tried to show the paramedic to have him verify, but he was uninterested and busy checking my heart rate. We arrived at the hospital and I was brought into the emergency room and hooked up to a heart monitor and IV. I had worked very hard at getting my blood pressure down over the past couple of years; it used to be around 138-40/80 whenever it was taken at the hospital. Over the last year or so it was consistently around 118-20/70; when I was in the ER it hovered over 160 for hours on end. While I was in the ER I had roving warm spells travel through my limbs, it would scare me a little bit but they did not completely incapacitate my body as they had before and they were fleeting in duration. I was administered an EEG, EKG, CAT scan, X-ray, and MRI with tracer dye, blood test, urine test. All of the tests came up normal and the doctors were a little confused. The recommended that I stay for overnight observation and I was moved to the inpatient ward after a few hours. I was hooked up to a fall monitor in my bed and whenever I needed to use the bathroom I would have to call for a nurse, partially to turn off the monitor and partially because I was very unstable/ felt like I could fall at any moment. I had to hold onto the IV stand as a walker to get back and forth to the bathroom.
Over the next few days I pretty much just lay in bed as I did not have very much energy. I continued to have what I termed roving blackouts (like the power in California) where my limbs would feel like a cloud of warmth was traveling through them and I would lose some sensation. Most frequently, my left arm would be very numb at the pinky and underside of my arm up to my elbow. Fluctuations in temperature or wind blowing against my skin became catalysts for my brain to think the initial experience was going to recur. I rode a bike after a week just to prove I could, I was very scared and felt like I was going to fall off the whole time. Strangely my brains mental map of where my body was at any given time seemed to be off by a couple of inches. I would be in bed and my arm would feel like it was missing so I would move it and the feeling would come back but it would be located a little bit differently than I expected it to be. Many of these symptoms continue to this day. I was given an appointment with the neurologist to get a sleep deprived EEG to compare to my initial EEG at the hospital. The neurologist gave a diagnosis of epilepsy and referred me to the UAB Epilepsy center for a second opinion. I do not agree with the diagnosis of epilepsy, I think the event was more likely a TIA or Cataplexy. I was told the MRI would detect brain damage and ruled out a stroke or MS. I think Cataplexy is the most likely cause as the symptoms match up nearly exactly except that I do not have traditional narcolepsy. It is possible that my brain is predisposed to be able to enter an epileptic state, however I do not feel that epilepsy was the cause of this particular event. I do not feel epilepsy is a proper diagnosis for the following reasons: I was awake for the whole event, I did not pass out, I did not lose consciousness, I did not have memory loss, my muscles were not rigid, and I did not have seizures. Also, epilepsy is traditionally a passing event that only last for a short period of times without lasting side effects. This even lasted for about an hour and had strong side effects for weeks and minor side effects for months.
The second neurologist gave me another sleep deprived EEG and then told me that the symptoms did not even look like epilepsy to begin with and that the first neurologist had misdiagnosed me. I repeatedly asked to see another neurologist to find out what was causing the symptoms, but instead I was forced to see a psychiatrist to verify my sanity. In the end, they are trying to discharge me without any actual diagnosis and the paperwork says that it is because my condition poses a logistical challenge for the AF.
My story follows:
I woke up and started getting dressed to go to the gym. As I was leaning over and started to pull my pants on a strange warm feeling started at my fingers and swept up my left arm. Once the warmth hit my shoulder the feeling spread out and descended down my torso and into my legs. It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of warm water down my back and everywhere the water touched went numb and lifeless. I was initially standing up but as the warmth hit my legs they began to buckle. I tried to fight the feeling as hard as I could, but I crumpled to the ground and ended up laying face down on the bedroom floor. As I lay on the floor my body was completely paralyzed except for my eyes. My body was covered in an amazing comfortable warm feeling. I felt like my whole body was being firmly squeezed by a perfectly warm blanket. It felt very good except that it was very scary because despite the physical symptoms my mind knew that something was horribly wrong. I thought I was dying. I struggled and fought the feeling for a few minutes and eventually I was able to crawl onto my knees and began to yell for help. I thought I was experiencing a heart attack because I had a tingling feeling in my left arm and I had heard that this was a symptom of a heart attack.
My girlfriend got out of bed as I walked to the 2nd bedroom door. She was in a complete state of confusion because she had no idea of what was going on and I was hysterical. She later said she initially thought I had been stabbed because when she walked to the door I was holding my left arm to my chest and yelling for her to call 911. As she got to the door where I was standing, a new symptom hit me; everything in the room appeared normal, but as I moved my left arm from right to left it seemed like I was looking at flashing photos of the endpoints of the motion, but I did not see any of the intermediate motion. It was as though my arm disappeared in one location and appeared in another. I was fully mentally lucid and awake through the whole experience and even though others around me were confused I was directive on what needed to be done. I began to walk through the house in search of aspirin because I knew it was helpful if I was having a heart attack. My girlfriend gave the details to the 911 operator. I walked with her in tow into the second bathroom, the kitchen, and finally the master bathroom without finding any aspirin. I heard someone at the door (I had unlocked the door when I had walked to the kitchen earlier because I realized the medical personnel would need to get into the house when they arrived). I walked from the bed to the bedroom door and from there could see that a police officer was standing at the door. As he started to enter the house I walked out of the bedroom and the warm feeling began to hit me again. I started yelling for help, but it clearly confused the officer because he stopped short at the door and just stood in the doorway looking back and forth at me, in the living room collapsing to the floor, and out into the yard at the flashing lights/siren of an ambulance. As I lay on the floor I was able to move more this time than the first and I continued to yell for help but the officer just stood there, waiting.
Finally a group of about five paramedics rushed in the house and began to attend to me. As they began to give me vital checks my left arm began to flash again. Whenever I would think about something my arm would be there, I thought about my chest and I looked down but my arm was already curled up and grasping my chest by I had not even wanted it to move there. The paramedics got me to my feet and we began to go towards the front door. I thought there was a paramedic behind me and I turned to look but my arm was already there grasping him, I stared in disbelief because I did not know my arm had moved there. As we got closer to the door I felt the warmth coming again and started to yell fearfully, “it’s coming again, it’s coming again.” Then my knees buckled again and I fell to the floor for a third time. While the paramedics began to check my vitals and responsiveness again my left arm began to move on its own. The arm was completely extended and waved slowly from left to right in front of my body and the fingers on my left hand fluttered up and down erratically. I was lying on my back and the paramedics wanted to see how hard I could squeeze my hands, I could control my right hand fairly well, but it took a lot of concentration to get my left arm to stop its random motion and to squeeze my hand, any momentary distraction and it would begin to do random orbits again. Whenever someone would touch me I felt like someone injected ice cold water into my veins at the site of contact and radiated from there. The paramedics soon brought in a stretcher and asked me if I could get onto it on my own, I tried but I did not have the strength and I felt like I was unstable and would fall again to they picked me up and put me on the stretcher. The paramedics picked me up and carried me to the ambulance and put me in the back with one of the paramedics. As we headed towards the hospital the paramedic began to check my functions again. He had me grab with my right hand, then left then push with my left foot. However, when I tried to move my leg it was like looking at a piece of wood, no matter how hard I tried it would not move at all, it was completely paralyzed. We moved on to my right foot and it moved fine.
The ride to the hospital is about 20 minutes and along the way I continued to try to move my left leg. Eventually my toes moved a little bit and slowly full motion returned by the time we reached the hospital. However, along the way I noticed that my hands were different colors; my right hand was normal, but my left was a strange ashy green/gray color. I tried to show the paramedic to have him verify, but he was uninterested and busy checking my heart rate. We arrived at the hospital and I was brought into the emergency room and hooked up to a heart monitor and IV. I had worked very hard at getting my blood pressure down over the past couple of years; it used to be around 138-40/80 whenever it was taken at the hospital. Over the last year or so it was consistently around 118-20/70; when I was in the ER it hovered over 160 for hours on end. While I was in the ER I had roving warm spells travel through my limbs, it would scare me a little bit but they did not completely incapacitate my body as they had before and they were fleeting in duration. I was administered an EEG, EKG, CAT scan, X-ray, and MRI with tracer dye, blood test, urine test. All of the tests came up normal and the doctors were a little confused. The recommended that I stay for overnight observation and I was moved to the inpatient ward after a few hours. I was hooked up to a fall monitor in my bed and whenever I needed to use the bathroom I would have to call for a nurse, partially to turn off the monitor and partially because I was very unstable/ felt like I could fall at any moment. I had to hold onto the IV stand as a walker to get back and forth to the bathroom.
Over the next few days I pretty much just lay in bed as I did not have very much energy. I continued to have what I termed roving blackouts (like the power in California) where my limbs would feel like a cloud of warmth was traveling through them and I would lose some sensation. Most frequently, my left arm would be very numb at the pinky and underside of my arm up to my elbow. Fluctuations in temperature or wind blowing against my skin became catalysts for my brain to think the initial experience was going to recur. I rode a bike after a week just to prove I could, I was very scared and felt like I was going to fall off the whole time. Strangely my brains mental map of where my body was at any given time seemed to be off by a couple of inches. I would be in bed and my arm would feel like it was missing so I would move it and the feeling would come back but it would be located a little bit differently than I expected it to be. Many of these symptoms continue to this day. I was given an appointment with the neurologist to get a sleep deprived EEG to compare to my initial EEG at the hospital. The neurologist gave a diagnosis of epilepsy and referred me to the UAB Epilepsy center for a second opinion. I do not agree with the diagnosis of epilepsy, I think the event was more likely a TIA or Cataplexy. I was told the MRI would detect brain damage and ruled out a stroke or MS. I think Cataplexy is the most likely cause as the symptoms match up nearly exactly except that I do not have traditional narcolepsy. It is possible that my brain is predisposed to be able to enter an epileptic state, however I do not feel that epilepsy was the cause of this particular event. I do not feel epilepsy is a proper diagnosis for the following reasons: I was awake for the whole event, I did not pass out, I did not lose consciousness, I did not have memory loss, my muscles were not rigid, and I did not have seizures. Also, epilepsy is traditionally a passing event that only last for a short period of times without lasting side effects. This even lasted for about an hour and had strong side effects for weeks and minor side effects for months.
The second neurologist gave me another sleep deprived EEG and then told me that the symptoms did not even look like epilepsy to begin with and that the first neurologist had misdiagnosed me. I repeatedly asked to see another neurologist to find out what was causing the symptoms, but instead I was forced to see a psychiatrist to verify my sanity. In the end, they are trying to discharge me without any actual diagnosis and the paperwork says that it is because my condition poses a logistical challenge for the AF.
