PNES the diagnosis and how to sort it

[melhun79]

My husband has just been told he has PNES which is short for psychogenic non epileptic seizures. Caused by his brain not coping with what he is going through.  He gets this sudden dizziness then what he describes as an empty feeling inside then will either just stop responding with eyes open or closed then starts with an fitting motion.

no one has helped or told us how to guide him out of these. He saw a psychologist yesterday but she didn’t really give him any ideas. Is this something he will recover from and stop having? 

it seems to happen when he feels some sort of pain somewhere in his body, or anticipation of seeing a doctor. 

wondering if anyone else has gone through these and come out the other end and stopped them? Or clues on how to help him?

[ecomama]

Welcome to the forums melhun, 

I hope you find support here for yourself and your husband. 

I don't know anything about this diagnosis. 

I want to point you in the direction of a YouTube Channel focused on healing everything. Yep everything. 
It's Dr Joe Dispenza and you may love watching the Testimonials sections to begin with. 

Dr Joe has Sleep Meditations that are supremely relaxing. 
I'm doing his guided Meditations and others' too several times a day on either side of work. 

Wishing you healing 
Love EM

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi melhun79,

Welcome.  Yes I was misdiagnosed with PNES so I have a really good experience with it and learning about it.  There's a lot of stigma with it and it takes a long time to get diagnosed so I'm really glad that your husband knows what's happening now and why it's happening.

As you just mentioned, it's caused by his brain not coping with what he's going through.  So part of treatment is helping the brain cope in other ways; in the same way all of us can get headaches when we're stressed, he's having seizures.  So finding other ways to deal with stress and emotions can help reduce the seizures.  Sometimes it also happens as a reaction to trauma so being able to cope or process trauma can be really helpful too.

One thing that could be really useful is keeping a diary and tracking the seizures; what are the things that trigger it?  What's he feeling/doing at the time? 

Hope this helps a little.  Glad you're reaching out and trying to help your husband and I hope you're taking care of yourself too.

rt