Seizures: My Personal Experience

Seizures: My Personal Experience

Sometimes a seizure may be so slight that no visible signs are seen in spite of the fact that the nerve endings in the elbow and arm are producing feelings of violent tingling, extreme heaviness and feels awful. Sometimes this ''focal sensory seizure'' moves into a more severe seizure, known as a “focal motor seizure'' with the visible results of jerking fingers. These same sensations may slowly ''march'' upwards until the whole hand, wrist, arm and shoulder are involved. If the seizure worsened it might run on up the muscle in the back of the neck and might even make the head jerk back and forth.....maybe even causing breathing difficulties. It's scary and no fun to have one! A light seizure may last only a few seconds but a really bad one lasts several minutes......which seems like an eternity. Then it ends naturally as special chemicals in the brain bring cell activity back to normal.

I have found that having seizures definitely has a stigma to it, but please don't be afraid to be around me. If I should have one of the very few seizures I have, you can't do anything for me nor are you expected to. I have some pills to do the trick.

Brain cells, unlike other cells, will not regenerate or replace themselves when destroyed, but by some unexplained yet marvelous process, other parts of the brain can establish circuits to take over the functions of the damaged area. Over time, injured cells can sprout new branches and connections and help the brain shift important functions, such as control of movement, from the damaged part of the brain to undamaged regions. As a patient recovers even small amounts initially, over a period of time it will add up to a significant functional improvement.

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.

SEIZURES

Soon after I got home I was told by somebody that I needed to have on hand tongue depressors in event of having a seizure. This was the first I had heard anything about having seizures! I had not been told that Dr. Dial and also Dr. Clark had said that due to the location of the tumor and the fact that “there had been so much manipulation in that area during the removal of the tumor” that I would be very likely to have seizures. I had no idea what having a seizure would be like, but to me, it was a terrifying thought! I was so afraid, I put a tongue depressor in every room in the house, in case I were to have a seizure in that particular room.

I'm so glad I never had an occasion to use one because not until years later, when reading “FIRST AID FOR SEIZURES” put out by The Epilepsy Foundation of America, did I learn: ''DO NOT force a tongue depressor or anything else into a person's mouth while he is having a seizure.
It is NOT true that a person having a seizure can swallow his tongue, and efforts to hold the tongue down can injure teeth or jaws.” I can't remember who told me I needed to have tongue depressors on hand, but that person was certainly misinformed and had surely scared me to death.

Very few people realize that there are many different types of seizures. Most people think of a seizure as being the grand mal convulsive type with the person unconscious, jaw muscle clenched, back stiffened and arms and legs jerking in muscle spasms. But the few seizures I have had are very different from this. I have a warning when a seizure is about to start. I remain awake, can think, talk, and am aware of what is going on while having the seizure. I never fall or pass out, but I do like to find a place to lie down.

When I started back singing with the church choir, I had a horror of maybe having a seizure one Sunday while sitting in the choir where all the congregation could see me. So I worked out a plan with Jack to please sit somewhere where he could see me in case I were to start having a seizure and would need to remove myself from public view. He was to leave church as soon as I did and meet me in the church parlor which was about the only place I could comfortably lie down. I have thanked the Lord many times for my not having to go through the embarrassment of ever having to leave during the church service.