Peri-ictal water drinking: An interesting phenomenon with unknown reason [Periiktal Su içme: Nedeni Bilinmeyen ilginç Bir Fenomen]

Background: peri-ictal water drinking is a rare vegetative symptom reported in temporal lobe epilepsy. our aim was to investigate the clinical,eeg,mri findings and psychiatric comorbidities of the patients reporting peri-ictal water drinking in their seizures. methods: patients reporting “water drinking” behavior,more than two times in their visits,as a consistent peri-ictal phenomenon were included and systematically questioned for the characteristics of peri-ictal water drinking. demographic,clinical and other available investigations were recorded from patients' files. epileptic patients without peri-ictal water drinking (group ii) and normal subjects (group iii) were included as two control groups for psychiatric evaluations. results: yale-brown obsessive symptoms,dissociative experiences scale,hamilton anxiety rating scale and depression rating scale scores were significantly high in the study group (group i) compared to normal controls (group iii) but these scores were not different compared to group ii. although there was no difference between the group i and group ii according to comorbid psychiatric diagnoses,compulsive symptom category of “washing” was detected significantly more frequent in group with peri-ictal water drinking (p:0.007). conclusion: the presence of peri-ictal water drinking does not seem to have a specific association with substantial psychiatric comorbidity in temporal lobe epilepsy patients. our study provided preliminary evidence that peri-ictal water drinking might be associated only with a specific type of compulsions,namely washing compulsions. © 2016,ege university press. all rights reserved.