Table of Contents
What Is Epilepsy?
Epilepsy can be a scary diagnosis, but it doesn’t have to be. The more you know about epilepsy, the better equipped you’ll be to manage your condition and lead a full life. Here’s what you need to know:
Epilepsy is a chronic disorder that causes unprovoked, recurrent seizures. A seizure is a sudden rush of electrical activity in the brain. Seizures can cause convulsions, thought disturbances and other symptoms. Although epilepsy can occur at any age, it’s most commonly diagnosed in children and older adults.
Epilepsy has many possible causes, from illness to brain injury to abnormal brain development. In some cases, no cause can be found for a person’s epilepsy.
There are many types of seizures, which range in intensity and how they affect the body. Most people with epilepsy have partial seizures that only affect one side of the brain or generalized seizures that affect both sides of the brain.
Treatment usually involves taking anti-epileptic medication or making lifestyle changes such as getting enough sleep, avoiding alcohol and not skipping meals. In some cases, surgery may be an option for adults with severe epilepsy that hasn’t responded to treatment.
What Is a Seizure?
If you’ve had seizures in the past, you know that they can be frightening. But if you haven’t had them before, it can be even scarier to see someone else having a seizure. No matter what your role is, or whether you’re the one having the seizure, when a seizure happens, there are several things that you must do to protect yourself and others.
What Is a Seizure?
A seizure is an involuntary change in your body caused by abnormal nerve activity in your brain. Seizures have many different symptoms. They may look like jerking movements, staring into space for a few seconds or minutes, or sudden falls. A person having a seizure may lose consciousness and stop moving for a short time. While most seizures only last from 30 seconds to two minutes, some people may have seizures that last much longer.
Some people have seizures only once or twice in their lives. These people usually don’t need treatment for their seizures; however, some patients who have epilepsy will often have seizures more than once over their lifetimes.
What Are the Different Types of Seizures?
There are many different types of seizures, ranging from absence seizures to tonic-clonic seizures.
Absence Seizures
This type of seizure causes a brief loss of awareness. It typically lasts only a few seconds and may occur several times a day without warning. While the seizure is happening, you won’t respond to anything around you. For example, if someone were to call your name during an absence seizure, you would be unable to respond. However, once the seizure is over, you would probably not remember what happened.
Myoclonic Seizures
These types of seizures are characterized by brief jerks or twitches of one or more muscles in the body. They may occur as single events or in clusters and often happen shortly after waking up in the morning. Myoclonic seizures can be caused by startle or loud noises and can occur with other types of seizures, such as absence and tonic-clonic seizures. The jerks are most often felt in the arms but can also affect the legs and torso.
Tonic Seizures
Tonic seizures cause stiffening of the muscles in your arms or legs, which may cause a fall if you aren’t seated at the time of the seizure.
What Are the Symptoms of a Seizure?
Seizures are caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. They’re also known as convulsions or fits. The symptoms vary from person to person, and some seizures may not produce any noticeable symptoms.
However, if you do experience a seizure, you may exhibit some of the following symptoms:
- Loss of consciousness
- Temporary confusion
- A staring spell
- Uncontrollable jerking movements of the arms and legs
- Loss of bowel or bladder control
- Falling suddenly for no apparent reason
- Breathing or tongue biting
What Causes a Seizure?
Causes of seizures vary depending on the type of seizure. In general, though, a seizure happens when there is an abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.
Not all seizures cause convulsions. Psychomotor seizures are characterized by a brief loss of consciousness, with or without physical symptoms such as jerking movements, muscle spasms and autonomic phenomena such as pallor, incontinence and vomiting. Seizures can be brought on by fainting spells or sleep deprivation, or they can occur in people who have medically unexplained symptoms.
In some cases, there is no known cause for a seizure. All the same symptoms happen, but there is no underlying medical disorder that doctors can identify to explain what happened. This is called idiopathic epilepsy. Many patients with idiopathic epilepsy have a family history of epilepsy and/or neurologic conditions such as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
How Are Seizures Diagnosed?
A seizure is diagnosed with a physical examination and by ruling out other conditions that could be causing the same symptoms.
The physical exam will include a neurological exam to check for muscle weakness or movement abnormalities and to check the level of consciousness. Blood tests and imaging tests may also be done to rule out other problems.
The doctor will talk with you about your seizure activity, past medical history, family history, and any medications you are taking. This information helps the doctor determine whether a diagnosis is likely or unlikely.
When you see the doctor, he or she will ask you about your seizures so they can get as much information as possible. You should take notes ahead of time if you want to make a list of questions to ask at your appointment. The doctor will ask questions like:
- When did the seizures start?
- Do they occur every day or only occasionally?
- How long do they last?
- How long do you have between seizures?
- Do the seizures happen only when you are awake or in your sleep too?
- What happens right before the seizure (for example, does light bother you)?
- What do the seizures feel like (do you lose consciousness, do strange things happen such as seeing lights)?
How Are Seizures Treated?
Seizures are treated depending upon several different factors, such as the person’s age, the frequency and severity of their seizure patterns, and any other medical conditions they may have. In some cases, no treatment will be needed. Anticonvulsant medications are commonly prescribed in order to control the severity and frequency of seizures. These medications vary based on a number of factors. One factor is whether or not the patient responds well to them. If a patient is not responding well to an anticonvulsant medication, doctors may try another one or add another medication to see if that helps improve the condition. Patients with epilepsy should avoid alcohol and illicit drugs because these substances may trigger seizures. They should also avoid sudden changes in sleep patterns because this can sometimes trigger a seizure. Physical activity can trigger a seizure so it’s best to be cautious while exercising, especially if you’re new to physical activity since your body may not be used to it yet.
What Is a Ketogenic Diet?
Most people have heard of “diets” and have some idea what they entail. But most people have never heard of the ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet is not a fad diet, it’s not a quick weight loss diet, and it’s not something where you starve yourself. In fact, this is the opposite of a starvation diet; it’s about consuming more than what your body needs so that your body is forced to burn fat for energy instead of storing it.
The key feature of a ketogenic diet is that it produces ketones in the body. Ketones are produced when there is an absence or very low presence of carbohydrates in the body. When your body doesn’t have enough glucose (carbs) to use for energy, it burns stored fat instead, which produces byproducts called ketones. These are used as energy by the body and brain. The brain can only run on glucose, so when your body burns its stores of fat, or you eat very few carbs and thus don’t consume enough glucose to fuel your brain, you will go into a state known as “ketosis.”
What Does the Diet Consist of?
Personnel in the autism unit present to the parents of children with ASD a series of recommendations to be followed in the daily diet.
- It is advisable to eliminate all products that contain gluten, such as wheat, rye, barley and oats.
- Including in daily meals vegetables and fruits in different presentations.
- Replacing pasta and rice with quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat.
- Including vegetables rich in iodine (such as watercress, kelp or seaweed) and those rich in vitamin C (such as green peppers, tomatoes or citrus).
- Including foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids. These are found mainly in blue fish (tuna, salmon or sardines) and nuts (walnuts or almonds).
How Long Is the Diet Used?
The diet used for autism is typically a long-term one, not a short-term one. The diet typically takes six months to become fully effective, and is continued indefinitely.
The diet used for autism is intended to remove gluten and casein from the diet. These food products are known to cause opioid effects, that is, they can bind to the same receptors in the brain as heroin and morphine. Some children with autism have shown withdrawal symptoms when these foods are removed from the diet.
Generally speaking, it takes about six months of regular use of this diet before any beneficial effects are noted.
Additional Treatment Options:
The spectrum of autism includes a diverse range of symptoms, and the treatment options are as varied as the symptoms themselves. In order to fully understand autism and its potential treatments, it is important to first understand the difference between autism symptoms and autism behaviors. The symptoms are defined as the characteristics that differentiate autistic people from non-autistic people, and can be social, communicative, or behavioral issues. The behaviors are the actions taken by autistic people that may be considered problematic or undesirable by other people, but have little or nothing to do with the characteristics that define their disorder. For example, repetitive movements are an autism symptom and would include rocking on one’s feet, spinning objects around in circles, and hand flapping.
The behavioral treatment options commonly given to autistic children focus on helping them overcome these sorts of behaviors while doing nothing to treat their underlying condition. This allows the child to live a more normal life without being forced to conform to the expectations of those around them—but this comes at a cost. Children who are forced into behavior modification therapy may find their repetitive motions suppressed for a time, but when they eventually have access again, they will always return—the brain has been wired in such a way that it cannot permanently suppress these movements.
More Information Regarding a Child with Seizures or Epilepsy
Seizures or epilepsy affects three million Americans. There are two main types of seizures: focal and general. Focal seizures occur in a specific part of the brain, while general seizures take place everywhere at once. Epilepsy is when a person has had more than one seizure. The brain is composed of billions of nerve cells that communicate with each other via chemicals called neurotransmitters. When the normal flow of neurotransmitters is disrupted, it causes a seizure. There are several reasons that this can happen, including head trauma, infections, strokes, tumors, low blood sugar levels, and birth defects.
Epilepsy Clinical Trials
A clinical trial is a research study involving patient volunteers that are conducted to find safe and effective treatments for a variety of health conditions. “Epilepsy clinical trials” refers to the many clinical trials that are currently underway to develop better, safer, more effective treatments for people with epilepsy.
Some trials are designed specifically for people with certain types of epilepsy, or certain ages or genders. Other trials test new treatments for people with epilepsy who have not responded well to other medications.
Here you will find information about epilepsy clinical trials and what you need to know if you are considering participating in one.