Epilepsy is a neurological condition, which affects the nervous system. Epilepsy is also known as a seizure disorder. It is usually diagnosed after a person has had at least two seizures that were not caused by some known medical condition like alcohol withdrawal or extremely low blood sugar. Sometimes, according to the International League Against Epilepsy, epilepsy can be diagnosed after one seizure, if a person has a condition that places them at high risk for having another.
The seizures in epilepsy may be related to a brain injury or a family tendency, but most of the time the cause is unknown. The word "epilepsy" does not indicate anything about the cause of the person's seizures, what type they are, or how severe they are..
Epilepsy is a condition of the nervous system that affects 2.5 million Americans. More than 180,000 people are diagnosed with epilepsy every year.
It can be scary watching someone have an epileptic seizure. The person may lose consciousness or seem unaware of what's going on, make involuntary motions (movements the person has no control over, such as jerking or thrashing one or more parts of the body), or experience unusual feelings or sensations (such as unexplained fear). After a seizure, he or she may feel tired, weak, or confused.
People have seizures when the electrical signals in the brain misfire. The brain's normal electrical activity is disrupted by these overactive electrical discharges, causing a temporary communication problem between nerve cells.
Just because someone has a seizure does not necessarily mean that person has epilepsy, though. Seizures can be triggered in anyone under certain conditions, such as life-threatening dehydration or high temperature. But when a person experiences repeated seizures for no obvious reason, that person is said to have epilepsy.
Many people develop epilepsy as children or teens. Others develop it later in life. For some people with epilepsy (particularly kids), the seizures eventually become less frequent or disappear altogether.
It's some questions often comes in our minds.
What is a seizure?
A seizure is a sudden burst of electricity in your brain, very much like a tiny bolt of lightning. This electricity is a signal that causes your body to feel different, or makes your body do things that you can't control. Sometimes the electrical signal only reaches part of your brain. Then a part of your body, like an arm or a leg, may move on its own. If the signal goes all through your brain, you may shake all over or may fall asleep for a short time. The whole seizure is usually very short -only a few seconds or perhaps a minute or so.
Why do patient has epilepsy?
Doctors aren't always sure why kids have epilepsy. Some kids get epilepsy by hurting their head in a bad accident. Others have an illness that injures their brain. For most kids the doctors cannot find out what causes the epilepsy.
Can his brother or sister catch epilepsy from his?
No one can catch epilepsy from you. It is not a disease like a cold, which is spread by germs. It is something that happens inside your brain and his can't pass it to anybody else. If more than one person in your family has epilepsy, it's not because they caught it from his.
Can I stop my seizures?
No one can magically make seizures stop by wishing. You can't control the electrical signals in your brain just by trying. But many kids who have epilepsy will not have more seizures if they take the right kind of medicine. These seizure medicines stop the seizures from happening. If your medicine doesn't stop all your seizures, it will probably help you not to have so many, or to have smaller ones.
Why do I have to take seizure medication every day?
People who take seizure medicines have to take them every day, or even many times a day. Imagine that the medicine is putting the seizures to sleep inside your brain, but they don't go away. If you forget to take your medicine, the seizures might wake up. Even if you don't have any seizures for a long time, you still have epilepsy, so the seizures probably would wake up again if you stopped taking the medicine.
Can I die from having a seizure?
Seizures can be very scary. If you wake up after a seizure and everyone around you is worried, you may worry too. But the truth is that kids almost never die from having a seizure. Most seizures last just a few minutes and kids are back to normal after a short rest.
Will I ever get better?
Doctors cannot always see into the future. For many kids with epilepsy, the seizures do go away when they get older. Other kids keep having seizures all their life. Doctors do know that for most kids, seizure medicines will keep the seizures from happening. If you have a kind of epilepsy that usually goes away, your doctor may say it's OK to try stopping your medicine when you haven't had any seizures for a long time. Don't stop taking your medicine unless the doctor says it's OK
Can I ride my bicycle? Can I go swimming?
Most kids with epilepsy can ride their bicycles. Just be sure that you always wear a bike helmet and stay away from dangerous places. You can also do lots of other sports. You just need to be a little more careful than other kids. Some people think that kids with epilepsy shouldn't go swimming because they might have a seizure in the water and drown. But if you don't have too many seizures it should be OK for you to go swimming in a pool if an adult is watching closely. All kids need to be watched in certain activities! If your parents are worried that something you want to do is too dangerous, ask them to talk to your doctor about it. Don't do it if they tell you not to.
Should I tell my friends about my epilepsy?
Not everyone needs to know about your epilepsy. It depends on how often you have seizures and how you feel about telling your friends. If you have seizures during the time you are with your friends, they should know what's going on. Even if your seizure medicine stops all your seizures, you might find that it feels good to share information about your epilepsy with your close friends. It's really up to you.
This is a tricky question with no clear-cut answer. Often doctors can't pinpoint exactly what causes epilepsy in a particular individual. But scientists do know that some things can make a person more likely to develop epilepsy, including:
a brain injury, such as from a car crash or bike accident an infection or illness that affected the developing brain of a fetus during pregnancy lack of oxygen to an infant's brain during childbirth meningitis, encephalitis, or any other type of infection that affects the brain brain tumors or strokes poisoning, such as lead or alcohol poisoning Epilepsy is not contagious (you can't catch it from someone who has it). It's not passed down through families (inherited) in the same way that blue eyes or brown hair are. But someone who has a close relative with epilepsy has a slightly higher risk for it than somebody with no family history of seizures.
Understanding Seizures Seizures may look frightening, but they're not painful. They affect different people in different ways. Epileptic seizures fall into two main categories: partial and generalized.
Partial seizures start in one part of the brain. The electrical disturbances may then move to other parts of the brain or they may stay in one area until the seizure is over.
A person having a partial seizure may lose consciousness. There may be twitching of a finger or several fingers, a hand or arm, or a leg or foot. Certain facial muscles might twitch. Speech might become slurred, unclear, or unusual during the seizure. The person's vision might be affected temporarily. He or she might feel tingling throughout one side of the body. It all depends on where in the brain the abnormal electrical activity is taking place.
Generalized seizures involve electrical disturbances that occur all over the brain at the same time. The person may appear to be daydreaming, may stare off into space, or may pass out. The muscles may stiffen and the person might make sudden jerking motions, such as flinging the arms outward. He or she may suddenly go limp and slump down or fall over.
Most seizures last only a few seconds or minutes. After a seizure is over, the person might feel sleepy or confused for a few minutes or even an hour or more. People who've had seizures may not remember the seizure or what happened immediately before the event. They may be alert and ready to resume whatever they were doing before the seizure happened. It varies from person to person.
Certain things can sometimes trigger seizures in people with epilepsy. They include:
flashing or bright lights a lack of sleep stress overstimulation (like staring at a computer screen or playing video games for too long) fever certain medications hyperventilation (breathing too fast or too deeply)
Types of seizures
There are three types of diagnoses a doctor might make when treating a patient with epilepsy:
Idiopathic - this means there is no apparent cause.
Cryptogenic - this means the doctor thinks there is most probably a cause, but cannot pinpoint it.
Symptomatic - this means that the doctor knows what the cause is.
There are three descriptions of seizures, depending on what part of the brain the epileptic activity started:
Partial seizure - this means the epileptic activity took place in just part of the patient's brain. There are two types of Partial Seizures:
Simple Partial Seizure - the patient is conscious during the seizure. In most cases the patient is also aware of his/her surroundings, even though the seizure is in progress.
Complex Partial Seizure - the patient's consciousness is impaired. The patient will generally not remember the seizure, and if he/she does, the recollection of it will be vague.
Generalized Seizure - both halves of the brain have epileptic activity. The patient's consciousness is lost while the seizure is in progress.
Secondary Generalized Seizure - the epileptic activity started as a partial seizure, but then it spread to both halves of the brain. As this development happens, the patient loses consciousness.
The main symptoms of epilepsy are repeated seizures. There are some symptoms which may indicate a person has epilepsy. If one or more of these symptoms are present a medical exam is advised, especially if they recur:
A convulsion with no temperature (no fever).
Short spells of blackout, or confused memory.
Intermittent fainting spells, during which bowel or bladder control is lost. This is frequently followed by extreme tiredness.
For a short period the person is unresponsive to instructions or questions.
The person becomes stiff, suddenly, for no obvious reason
The person suddenly falls for no clear reason
Sudden bouts of blinking without apparent stimuli
Sudden bouts of chewing, without any apparent reason
For a short time the person seems dazed, and unable to communicate
Repetitive movements that seem inappropriate
The person becomes fearful for no apparent reason, he/she may even panic or become angry
Peculiar changes in senses, such as smell, touch and sound
The arms, legs, or body jerk, in babies these will appear as cluster of rapid jerking movements
The following conditions need to be eliminated as they may present similar symptoms, and are sometimes misdiagnosed as epilepsy:
Narcolepsy (recurring episodes of sleep during the day and often disrupted nocturnal sleep)
Cataplexy (a transient attack of extreme generalized weakness, often precipitated by an emotional response, such as surprise, fear, or anger; one component of the narcolepsy quadrad)
Sleep disorders
Nightmares
Panic attacks
Fugue states (a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity)
Psychogenic seizures (a clinical episode that looks like an epileptic seizure, but is not due to epilepsy. The EEG is normal during an attack, and the behavior is often related to psychiatric disturbance, such as a conversion disorder)
Breath-holding episodes (when a child responds to anger there may be vigorous crying and subsequent apnea and cyanosis - the child then stops breathing and skin color changes with loss of consciousness)
The goal of treatments for epilepsy is decreasing the number and severity of seizures while minimizing potential side effects. Many forms of treatment involve medications that manage the symptoms of the condition. In cases where medications do not adequately control seizures, surgery may be considered. One option that has shown some success in children is a strict diet rich in fats and low in carbohydrates (known as a ketogenic diet).
Treating Epilepsy:
Accurate diagnosis of the type of epilepsy a person has is crucial in finding an effective epilepsy treatment.
There are many different treatment options for epilepsy. Current methods can control seizures at least some of the time in about 80 percent of people with epilepsy. However, another 20 percent -- about 600,000 people with epilepsy in the United States -- have intractable seizures, and another 400,000 feel they get inadequate relief from available treatments. These statistics make it clear that improved treatments for epilepsy are desperately needed.
Once epilepsy is diagnosed, it is important to begin treatment as soon as possible. Research suggests that medication and other options may be less successful once seizures and their consequences become established.
The goal of epilepsy treatment is to decrease the number and severity of seizures and minimize drug side effects.
Medications Used to Treat Epilepsy
For about 80 percent of those diagnosed with epilepsy, seizures can be controlled with medicines and/or surgery. Drugs best treat the symptoms of epilepsy, but they do not cure the disease.
Since 1990, a large number of new antiepileptic drugs have been approved, increasing the treatment options available. All of these medications, even the new ones, have some side effects because antiepileptic drugs act directly on the nervous system.
Which Drug to Use
The choice of drug depends on:
The type of epilepsy. Some drugs such as Epilim are active in a wide range of seizures (tonic-clonic, absence attacks, etc.) while Zarontin, for example, is active only against absence seizures.
Possible side effects. For example, Dilantin tends to promote hair growth on the body and face, and should be avoided in women of dark complexion. Dilantin also seems more likely to produce slowing of thought processes including memory than the newer anticonvulsant such as Tegretol or Epilim, which do not usually produce these symptoms.
Anticipation of pregnancy. All anti-epileptic drugs carry a small risk to the unborn child. We will consider this question later.
Other medication. Possible interaction between the anti-epileptic drug and other medication is an important consideration. A common problem is the contraceptive pill - only Epilim appears to be free of significant interaction. Other anti-epileptic medications may make the pill less effective by speeding up its metabolism in the liver, or the pill may repay the compliment by accelerating the removal of the medication from the circulation. This does not mean that Epilim is the only anti-epileptic drug a woman may take when using the contraceptive pill but that the doctor prescribing must take this possible interaction into account.
Posts
