Staying healthy as a person living with PNES while staying cooped up during the age of COVID-19

We have all been asked to practice something called “social distancing” which means keeping at least 6 feet from others and avoiding (as of today) being in a group of 10 people. Schools, churches, public buildings, restaurants, gyms, etc. have all been closed for this purpose and now, many of us are stuck at home without our usual daily routine to keep us occupied. Basically, we are to be cooped up for at...

New article: Long-term outcome in a sample of underprivileged patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) living in Argentina

This month, researchers from Argentina (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, de la Universidad de Buenos Aires y del ENyS) together with Dr. Lorna Myers (Director, Psychogenic Non-epileptic Seizures Program at the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group) published an article in the Epilepsy and Behavior Journal: “Long-term outcome in a sample of underprivileged patients with psychogenic...

The good news is that you don’t have epilepsy, instead you have something called PNES

This blog’s title depicts a common way in which many doctors explain the diagnosis of Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) to patients who are newly diagnosed with this disorder. I suspect this presentation is meant to suggest to the patient that having PNES is less terrible, dangerous, maybe potentially intractable, etc. than having epilepsy. However, in this year’s American Epilepsy Society meeting there...

Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures: Fifth Annual conference held in New Jersey in 2018

This past Saturday, we held a historic annual conference on psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES)! Historic, for many reasons, one of which is because it was the FIFTH year running that we have hosted this meeting. And as we have now become accustomed, it was successful on many, many levels and left us all feeling energized. There were two especially novel and exciting changes this year. We heard and responded...

Are psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) the same in men and women?

In 2017, we set about trying to answer a question that had been on my mind for a few years. The query was whether women and men with PNES were the same in all respects or different, and if they were different, in what ways. The reason answering this question is important is because better understanding differences in the general PNES classification can help clinicians know better what factors to keep an eye open...