Reading problems

[lightspd]

Hi,
   My girl friend has been unable to read for about 2 months now.  It started with pain in the back of her head, where the spine meets the skull.  Any time she try's to read anything or sees something with fast motion, she gets sever pain there to the point she almost in tears.  

About 3 weeks ago, she had what I would observe as a seizure.  She was in the kitch and colapsed, by the time I ran in there, she was sitting up, but disoriented and then appeared to have a seizure.  She went to the doctor and they did a CT scan and blood work which came back normal.  She has also been to an optometrist and that just resulted in more pain from trying to read the letter on the chart.

I noticed tonight while she was looking at me that her eyes don't lock, they twitch back and forth, even when I told her to focus on my nose.  Her primary care physician refered her to a neurologist, the problem is she doesn't currently have insurance, so we have to pay for everything out of pocket, so she tends to try to limit tests to what is needed and even then she is stuborn about getting tests done.

I'm hoping someone on here will have a suggestion of what the problem could be or what avenue of help would be the best course.

Cheers.

[lightspd]

Thank you for the information.  I don't believe alexia would qualify as one of her symptoms, as she can understand what she reads, it just causes severe pain in her occipital lobe when she tries to read.  She is planning on getting an MRI, it's just hard to come up with the money to pay for the neurologist, the MRI, and treatment if something is found.

The other concern she has is, her insurance does kick in, in January.  So if they do find anything, she is afraid the insurance company will classify it has a pre-existing condition and she will still be in the same boat of having to pay for everything.

Thank you for the medical terms to search for, it helps greatly in researching her issue.

[cushy]

It would help if you did a search on the words" nystagmus---alexia--petit mal siezure".
Next- I think a MRI with contrast would be the next step to rule out a lesion--like in the occipital lobe.

You could to go to a diagnostic site--maybe thru a PA or NP--and type in the 3-4 major medical terms that describe her condition--like alexia & nystagmus & siezure and see what comes up as of differential diagnosis --then go to each condition and see what they would have in common for tests and choose the tests that cover as many of the diagnosis as possible---could that help in this very difficult situation??

David