Are You Having Seizures in Your Sleep?

Here's a fun fact I recently learned that's kept me up nights: You can have seizures in your sleep. You can also be unaware that you have seizures in your sleep. However, if you aren't aware that you're having seizures in your sleep until someone tells you are, then the seizures probably aren't anything to worry about UNLESS you have a history of epilepsy, even febrile seizures during a high fever way back in your childhood.

Having seizures while sleeping (nocturnal seizures) is not to be confused from hypnic jerks or hypnogogic jerks.  Even if you have epilepsy or a known seizure condition, you may experience hypnic jerks. Hypnic jerks tend to wake sleepers up suddenly and can happen before you are fully asleep. Sometimes nocturnal seizures do not wake the sleeper up. Sometimes they do.  It's nice and vague like that.  If you are not sure of the difference, talk to your doctor or neurologist.

If your doctor or neurologist suspects that you have nocturnal seizures, then you may have to get an EEG video study done to make sure. Sadly, this is an expensive test that insurance often will not cover. You have to contact your insurance company to see what hoops you and your doctors need to jump through in order for them to even consider covering part of the test expenses.

If you wake up feeling exhausted even after eight hours of sleep, then it could be due to seizures or sleep apnea. Even if you wind up not having either of those conditions, there still is some medical issue that needs addressing. For example, if you take anti-seizure medications, that can greatly impact your quality of sleep. You may need to change to another medication.

If you do have nocturnal seizures, does this mean that you could lose your job or have your driver's license taken away? Not necessarily. If you have never had a seizure during your waking hours, then you should be able to continue driving. Talk to your doctor about this. If your work requires long amounts of driving or operating heavy machinery, you may need to get your doctor to write your employer (or potential employer) a letter stating that although you have a seizure condition, you should be safe to work.

Is it possible to have nocturnal seizures and not have epilepsy? Yes, but the chances are rare, unless you have been abusing alcohol or drugs. Anyone who has gone cold turkey knows that if you manage to get any sleep, it will be fractured and may increase the chances of you getting withdrawal seizures. This is why it's best for the drying out period to be done under medical supervision.

The following video is of a nocturnal grand mal (tonic-clonic) seizure happening to a 38 year old man. His dog seems little bothered by the events.