BBC Radio 4 - The Diagnosis, 11.00am Tue 7 Jan 2020

[Barry]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cz0y

For most of her life, Janice Wilson suffered from strange and terrifying attacks at night. She would wake up, suddenly, feeling as though she was being choked or strangled. The next day, there would be blood on her pillow. Sometimes she’d have up to 50 of these attacks a night. It left her terrified and exhausted. For years, doctors put it down to psychological problems due to a trauma in her past. Then she met a doctor who found the astonishing, true cause.

[my bold]

This may well be relevant to the discussion on MUS @dave30th.

 

[Kitty]

I'd spotted that, too – sounds intriguing, so I've set it to record.

 

[Milo]

Nighttime seizures would be my best bet.

 

[Trish]

Just listened. Fascinating story. Decades of being told her frequent night episodes of waking gasping for breath and feeling she couldn't breathe and like being strangled, were the result of childhood trauma.

Finally a neurologist did sleep clinic with EEG, and MRI scan, found nothing, but didn't give up and did a PET scan with radioactive isotopes injected to see electrical activity deep in the brain. Turned out to be a rare form of epilepsy. Now treated with anti epilepsy medication and the episodes have stopped.

 

[Hoopoe]

Finally a neurologist did sleep clinic with EEG, and MRI scan, found nothing, but didn't give up and did a PET scan with radioactive isotopes injected to see electrical activity deep in the brain. Turned out to be a rare form of epilepsy. Now treated with anti epilepsy medication and the episodes have stopped.

A FND diagnosis after the initial nonfindings would have prevented or delayed the correct diagnosis.