Moments of involuntary shaking and twitching. it starts in the hands & soon i feel it in my arms. i feel dizzy & really weak. when i try to talk, the words first come out stuttered. but then it gets more difficult. my lips tense up & and my cheeks fill wi

Hello. : Hello. I noticed that you have tagged both panic attacks and seizures here. I will start by describing panic attacks. Panic attacks are usually brief. They often last a couple of minutes to around ten minutes. Symptoms can include a sense of severe anxiety or panic as well as chest tightness or pain and a rapid or pounding heartbeat. There could also be areas of numbness or pins and needles type sensation. A person can experience hot flashes or chills and perspire heavily. There may be a tickle sensation in the stomach or nausea. When a person has a panic attack they may feel dizzy or faint and may become physically shaky. The person may fear that they are going crazy, they are out of control or that they are about to die. They may have a sense that they are unreal (a form of dissassociation called depersonalization). The sense that everything in the environment feels abnormal is derealization. Although what you are describing sounds a lot like a panic attack; it is very important to have a full physical evaluation to rule out the possibility that this a medical problem. I recommend that you be evaluated by your family doctor. He or she may consult with a neurologist. Clearly these episodes feel really bad, so i hope you get a medically evaluated soon.

What : What you describe is not typical for epileptic seizures but you should definitely see a neurologist to be evaluated to make sure you do not have seizures. Panic attacks feel terrible but nobody dies from one, but people can die after having a seizure, and repeated seizures become harder to control and have a serious impact on quality of life. Plus, if this is a recently noticed problem, if these are seizures you need a thorough evaluation to see if there is a treatable cause, such as (don't panic) a brain tumor. Any adult with a new onset of a seizure disorder should be presumed to have a tumor until it is proven otherwise, that's just prudent medicine, so you need to find out first if these are seizures and then, if they are, get worked up for a cause.