Sunday, January 27, 2008

What are seizures?

What are seizures?

1. Seizures are a physical condition, not an emotional or a mental state. They are more apt to occur if the person is under stress, is greatly fatigued or has missed taking the medicine that controls seizures.

2. Seizures are recurrent sudden changes that are beyond voluntary control due to episodes of overactivity of brain cells.

The brain is the control center of the body. All human activity is made possible by the orderly discharge of electrical energy between brain cells. Normal electrical signals between cells make the brain and the body work correctly. In this process, the normal electrical function of the brain, breaks down, then an electrical storm or overactivity occurs in the brain and the visible result is a seizure.

This will shock you, but there is not a person living who is not capable of having a seizure if there is sufficient stimulus to goad his brain cells into overactivity. However, the brain cells in most people have an innate resistance to becoming overactive. But there are persons who have a lowered resistance to the irritation of cells that lead to the occurrence of seizures.

3. Most Seizures Can Be Controlled with Drug Therapy. Drug therapy is by far the most common treatment for seizure control used by doctors. A drug won't work properly until it reaches a certain level in the body and that level has to be maintained so that there is always enough of the drug in the patient's system to quiet seizures and prevent them from happening, without causing too many side effects. The doctor ideally tries to bring the dose to just the point where the side effects and the seizures both disappear.

It is estimated that about 100% of the population, now more than two million people, have epilepsy. 100,000 new cases develop every year. Many people get complete control of seizures so long as their medication is taken regularly. I take Dilantin as my anticonvulsant medication and if I keep just the right amount of Dilantin in my blood stream at all times, the drug controls my seizures........instead of a seizure controlling me.
But I have found it to be extremely difficult to keep just the right amount in my blood stream. My level seems to see-saw and most of the time is either too high or too low. So every few weeks I have to have my blood drawn and tested by the hospital outpatient to keep a check on my level. My brain suffered permanent neurological damage with the removal of the second brain tumor so I will have to take an anticonvulsants for the rest of my life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

a left fronal lobe tumor was removed on july 3,1997.my first seizure was in my general practitioners office on dec 22 1999.while in the hospital my neurologist began further treatment with antiseizure drugs which helped.each medicine controlled seizures 8-9 months and had to be changed.i have been on epilepsy conroll drug lamictal -in different doses-for just short of 6 months and am again starting to have seizures.a new medicine will be initiated this week hopefully it will last a good deal of time.