Hmmm.... Just some thoughts. We've also tried to rule epilepsy out with our difficult child as he is currently diagnosed as ODD. But as one poster noted, it can't be ruled out, only in. I know because I was diagnosed at 23 with Petit Mal Epilepsy with Partial Complex Seizures in the Temporal Lobe after I had a major car accident. The accident didn't cause the epilepsy but rather the other way around. I had the epilepsy since as far back as I could remember as a kid. I was then put on Depakene for about 4 years to control the seizures. It was a miracle drug and cleared it up almost immediately until I grew out of it. After two conscutive years and and 4 EEGs where the docs weren't able to induce the seizures and see it on an EEG, they pronounced me seizure free.
Anyway, those symptoms included intense rage after being under stress and then "blowing up" and occasionally with no provocation. I can't tell you how many walls I put my fist through. I would have periods of memory loss where I would would just black out for as long as a second or too. To the outside observer I looked like I was daydreaming, but I was really re-booting but didn't know it. Right before a seizure I would sometimes experience synethesia, or the hearing of colors, seeing sounds, or a certain letter might be a certain color to me. As a kid I figured everyone saw the world around them like this. It's not like someone asks you what color the letters you see are. Especially after they give you those color-blind tests. How was I to know this was unexpected as a kid?
The doctor at the time said the normal anger I was feeling under stress would reach a point and then the electrical impulses in the brain would cascade over the entire temporal lobe, which then caused the synethesia and eventual mini blackout and my emotions to go haywire.
Sometimes days would go by and it wouldn't happen at all and other days it would happen 4 or 5 times an hour. When it happened frequently, I didn't know something was even happening, just that I missed a few words of what was being said. Looking back, in school it was a major handicap preventing me from learning, but I wasn't even aware of it happening. Once it was diagnosed and treated a million thing were explained for me. That in and of itself was a relief.
I had been tested for epilepsy as a child and they didn't find it then but I had it. The trick was a really dedicated neurologist after the accident. If you suspect epilepsy, push really hard for them to do the tests really intensely. For me no matter what frequency the light flashed it didn't trigger it. For me it was really intense hyperventilation and me getting angry at them for pushing me so hard. That is when they could clearly see it on the EEG and I gazed over for brief moment.
I've been seizure free since I was 28 or so. You can grow out of this type of epilepsy.
Good luck.
