Transient Global Amnesia and OSA, there is no relation.

[rosacer]

Hello people

Last Saturday I get an episode of TGA (Transient Global Amnesia). This lasted for about 5 hours.

What it looks like? You are doing your things even complicated things and your memory stops recording the events. So at the end of a while you start again slowly recording (but on a ON OFF way) what you are doing and then you realize you have lost a period of time you can't remember. But you see those complicated things done and you wonder who did it why that thing is there, and so on then you realize something is not normal but you don't know what is happening.

Because you are not already 100% recording the information, you start asking a lot of questions cause you know something is wrong; but you are still unable to remember what you just asked and less still the answer you continue asking the same thing again and again. Finally you become again able to record (remember) without interruptions and you get normal again, I mean you remember all what you do then you are really sure you get a big hole in the memory/time.

I made a lot of manual work, I cook lunch, I eat lunch, and I don't remember I did it. All the sudden I realized as if a part of the day had vanished as if I had just woke up.

I went to emergency room it was the possibility of a (cardiovascular accident). I had a Scan of the brain, blood tests, heart, blood pressure and saturation monitored. Nothing but a very hard to detect (read from the scan) hypo-density on the left side of the brain.

I had nothing going wrong before the TGA; I never lost consciousness, nor epilepsy, nothing while the time I was on TGA.

I read this about TGA: ''one study showed that among people who had experienced TGA, all had cavities in the hippocampus, and these cavities were far more numerous, larger, and more suggestive of pathological damage than in either healthy controls or a large control group of people with tumor or stroke.'' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_ ... #Prognosis

I read too, the hyppocampus can be damaged because of low oxigen levels look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus

I was wondering if this is a problem related to years of OSA not treated.

It would be interesting to know the incidence among OSA sufferers. Has some one here experienced TGA in the past? As it's stated in Wikipedia's article this is a rare syndrome 5.2 cases on 100,000 persons (in USA) and 23 on 1000,000 for people over 50 in USA.

[fuzzy96]

alien implant malfunction(AIM)

[bdp522]

I never had a TGA episode but My Mom did. Scared us all half to death! She called me the day after x-mas to see why we had unwrapped the gifts she had worked so hard to wrap! She lost all of Christmas day. After lots of tests and no answers, she started remembering again. As we were getting ready to leave the hospital, I went to fix her hair and found a small bruise on her head. The doctors decided she had hit her head and that was the cause. She had the TGA episode when she was in her 50's and never had another. She lived to be 82. She never did get the memory of christmas day back. Of course being the loving children we were, the phrase 'uh oh are you forgetting again?' became a common phrase!(it even worked for a little while).

Brenda

Edit...OOPS, forgot to say Mom did not have sleep apnea.

[jamiswolf]

Hi Roseacer,
I was going to give a glib answer like: I don't remember" but Fuzzy aced me out.

It sounds distressing and I sympathize with and uderstand your desire for information.

I am almost certain that I had OSA for over 20 years before treated. Plus I was in a serious auto accident with a head injury and loss of blood to the point that I have some visual damage from it. But even after all of that, I've never experienced anything like you've described.

Best of luck in your search and at least you understand the syndrome. There was a Drew Barimore movie where she couldn't remember anything from one day to the next. Sounds somewhat similar except lasting a little longer.
Jamis

[chunkyfrog]

Does a couple of minutes count?
I used to have these little episodes in the car; where I would suddenly look around and wonder how I got so far
(several blocks) in an instant. Sometimes, I was DRIVING.
Thank goodness that stopped completely right after I started CPAP.
Or maybe I don't remember it any more. . .

[squid13]

I've never had anything like what you describe and it would be terrifying to loose track of so much time and never get it back. All I have is plain old senior moments or brain farts as my friend calls them and those are often enough and they fluster me so I can't imagine what you feel when this happens.

[rosacer]

Thank you guys for the answers, I'm a very curious person I hope the replies will continue. If you read the 2 links I included you will see in some case a lack of oxygen could lead to damage to the hippocampus and the hippocampus is believed to control the memory in some way.

No, I'm not distressed I'm only curious about these TGA. My sister was with me and I need to say she told me she was distressed to see me asking as a machine the same questions time after time as if I had no answer and telling ''It's as if I just wake up, something is not right, why do we need to go to the hospital, how I arrived here? (I was in a room at home sitting in front of her and on my last memory I was in front of my computer)''. I have no recall from what happened on all those 5 hours, only small pieces at the beginning and the end when I started to be able to register my actions.

The wikipedia link states ''its duration varies but generally lasts between 2 to 8 hours'' so as per this information what chunkyfrog experienced it's not considered as TGA. Maybe you didn't have enough time to develop and show all the other signs. Something real is you are not able to ever get the memories you didn't register. I still don't remember what I didn't remember yesterday even if my sister has explained to me with full detail what my reactions where, what I asked, how I worked with her doing several complicated things at home,etc etc, it's gone by bye; the neurologist said don't waste your time trying to remember you will not remember it.

The neurologist said TGA is not well known, the science is trying to get an explanation.

[DoriC]

I'm glad you're in no distress and feeling OK. Were any meds prescribed or any followup tests?

[jamiswolf]

Resacer,
I read the first link and will get around to the second one tomorrow.

There doesn't seem to be any link to sleep apnea...is it the low oxygen level that caused you to make that connection?

One interesting connection I made while reading that Wiki was that it bears a striking resemblance to an alcoholic blackout. People experiencing that appear alert and functioning (though not too well) yet they remember nothing of the experiences during that period. It could be that alcoholic blackouts are actually alcohol induced TGA experiences. Just a thought...
Jamis

[rosacer]

Hi DoriC

No meds where prescribed other than 80mg aspirins in case the problem was produced by a small blood clot traveling from ex. the carotid arteries. I had stopped one blood pressure pill but still was taking a diuretic because my blood pressure had gone too low. The specialist for blood pressure adjusted the blood pressure pills/diuretic at 1/2 the dose, today my blood pressure was quite close to low, that's why I had stoped taking those meds LOL. At the beginning they thought my problem could be due to high blood pressure, it was not the case.

Test prescribed (as outpatient because I didn't want to wait until today at the emergency room, on Sunday only urgent cases are taken for MRI): brain MRI, stress electrocardiogram 24hours, electroencephalogram, carotid's Doppler and some blood tests for glycemia, blood lipids, sodium, potassium and other stuff I don't understand LOL. The neurologist said he is expecting all the test will be normal but only because they found that hard to see hypo-density he preferred to send me to pass all the tests.

[rosacer]

Sorry Jamis, I had never had an alcoholic black out I can't tell you if TGA looks like that.

I had all my brain working except the memory; I cooked (I cleaned lettuce and a half rotten avocado no problem at all ); I cut a long plastic sheet (several feet long) the good length using the right method and tools then I was going to install it even if I was supposed to do it other time (I toke the drill from the locker) and then asked ''who toke the drill from the locker?'' that was one of the first signs that something was not going well, all that as per my sister's recount. I was acting normal until I start telling I didn't know what had happened with the time, etc all the other acts were done completely normal.

I'm so glad my sister was there to witness all the show and be able to tell me all what I did and to bring me to the hospital.

I think somebody intoxicated with alcohol can't do those things. I was able to measure, use tools, cut the lettuce and all other vegetables for a salad, etc. The short moments my memory came back I noticed something was wrong, then the memory was erased and I continued functioning without noticing the problem, I tell you it's SUPER WEIRD EXPERIENCE.

Today I'm completely back to my normal state which ever it is just joking, I'm as always.

[SleepingUgly]

Wow, sounds incredibly unnerving to undergo that experience. Glad you're back to your "normal". I hope it doesn't happen again.

[jamiswolf]

Rosacer wrote: Sorry Jamis, I had never had an alcoholic black out I can't tell you if TGA looks like that.

Didn't mean to imply that your situation was alcohol related, seriously.

Just that the similarities caused me to think about patients I've dealt with in the past. I'm a retired Psychiatric Nurse so have dealt with people with a wide variety of chemical and psychiatric afflictions.

Wish I had more to offer but truthfully, never have run into anyone with your diagnosis. You seem pretty lucid to me...but will you remember this in the morning?
Jamis

[rosacer]

Hey jamis, I was only joking didn't think a split second you was implying anything about a alcohol problem in my case; don't worry!

Sure I will remember you in the morning, I haven't drank today

The reason you didn't saw a case of TGA is maybe because it's not classified as a psychiatric problem nor treated by psychiatrist, it's a neurological related syndrome treated by neurologists. A friend of mine a very good psychiatrist Dr., told me she had never heard about TGA. The neurologist told he had already seen a couple of cases and for the intern I was his first case.

[rosacer]

Excuse me guys I din't answer yesterday, I was still tired from my 24 hours at the emergency area

by bdp522

I never had a TGA episode but My Mom did. Scared us all half to death! She called me the day after x-mas to see why we had unwrapped the gifts she had worked so hard to wrap! She lost all of Christmas day. After lots of tests and no answers, she started remembering again. As we were getting ready to leave the hospital, I went to fix her hair and found a small bruise on her head. The doctors decided she had hit her head and that was the cause. She had the TGA episode when she was in her 50's and never had another. She lived to be 82. She never did get the memory of christmas day back. Of course being the loving children we were, the phrase 'uh oh are you forgetting again?' became a common phrase!(it even worked for a little while).

Brenda

Brenda: Thank you very much for your reply, it comfort me to hear from a real person (not statistics) that it's true TGA is not likely to arrive again. Although I'm not scared I'm a bit concerned because when the worst of the OSA arrived I lost all concentration and I forgot A LOT the things people told me to do or what I had just done. But the difference is that I was able to noticed it in the following minutes. This time was as if I loss hours and all the sudden I realize the time has pass and I had no idea were I have been or did in all that time, I know I was not sleeping then what happened to me??? What a feeling! On my case I didn't felt down, nor hit my head, no fainting, no low blood sugar, no drugs, not alcohol, no seizures, no stress, no bad news, no cholesterol, no extenuating exercise, I had slept well; maybe low blood pressure a little bit big mystery!

My sister was very scared too, as you were. Me, I was confused (and preoccupied ) at the beginning when I noticed something was missing, trying to make sense at the situation and trying to understand.

by SleepingUgly

Wow, sounds incredibly unnerving to undergo that experience. Glad you're back to your "normal". I hope it doesn't happen again.

SleepingUgly: when you start noticing that hole in the time you are not already functioning 100% , you come back slowly. You remember like on snap shots, then you start trying to analyse the information among the already present moments of forget.
It was two things that helped me to keep back my emotions in control because I need to say at one moment I almost panicked and start to think the worst. One was that my sister was not showing any sign of distress (although she told me after that she was very preoccupied) it reassured me. The second was that I remembered what I believe about God's love and then I decided to let the situation on his control whatever the outcome was going to be. But yes a TGA episode could be very distressing I agree with you sure.

Thanks very much for your good wishes. Today after having slept on my bed 2 nights and my back is not hurting I'm OK.

This experience helped me to realize how fragile we are.