Epilepsy, Facts And Fiction

Look what you did . . .

Lol.  Anyway.  One of my faves wanted to know about epilepsy and I figured I would write an entry about it and some of the myths surrounding it, as well as giving facts and things I’ve discovered about at least Rob’s case.

1. Yes, epilepsy does cause seizures.  Basically, epilepsy is the random electrical firings of neurons in the brain.  They start misfiring about five times more than what they should normally, and that causes the seizures.

2. This was something I didn’t know about before meeting Rob and reading up on the subject, but there are different kinds of seizures.  The most common one that people think of is called a grand mal.  I believe the name is originally from the french, meaning "big sickness."  Anyway, grand mal seizures are the stereotypical kind: unconsciousness, convulsions, shaking, muscle rigidity, all that stuff.

Another type of seizure is called petit mal.  Whatever language these names originate from, if it is actually French, or something else, petit mal means "little sickness."  These seizures normally just make the person freeze.  Their muscles do stiffen, sometimes their facial muscles twitch.  According to Rob, because he has both grand mal and petit mal seizures, he can hear things when having a petit mal, he just can’t respond in any way.

There are other types of seizures, but I don’t recall their names, nor have I seen them to my knowledge, so I’m not going to comment on those since I don’t have definite info.

3. I’ll lead into the myths here.  One of the most common signs that the general populus will say causes a seizure is flashing lights.  The technical term is photosensitive, but it means that flashing lights, bright, quickly changing colors, things like that, can cause seizures.  But what most people don’t know is that only about five percent of all epileptics are photosensitive.  So all the hype about video games causing seizures, or TV shows like that one Pokemon one, they won’t in most epileptics.

Another myth, and this one bothers the heck out of Rob, is that a lot of people think that when a person is in the grips of a seizure, they’re likely to choke on their tongue.  This is a myth!  It’s not true.  Rob always told me that it wasn’t true because a person doesn’t breathe when they’re having a seizure.  Yet I haven’t been able to test this yet, because the grand mals that I’ve seen him have, he’s always been making some kind of odd sound, and it seems like if he wasn’t breathing, he wouldn’t be able to continue making those noises for as long as he has.

The seizures can be controlled with near hundred percent success, in about eighty percent of cases.  For grand mals, usually a drug called phenobarbital is used.  Depending on the severity of the seizures, the dosage will, of course, vary.  And just like with all medication, the height, weight, and any other health issues of the person can affect how much medication they’re able to take.

Unfortunately, pheno is a physically addictive drug, so if a person is given the okay by a doctor to go off the medication, it have to be done very carefully.  With epilepsy, it means that a person’s seizure threshold is lower than a normal person’s.  Compare it to two different people’s pain thresholds.  Someone can deal with Indian burns, pinching, flicked ears, and a whole bunch of other stuff without flinching at all.  Other people cringe away as soon as they’re within reach of a pinch.  That’s how epilepsy is.  And that makes it even harder for them to go off something like pheno, even with a doctor’s orders, because they still have the lower seizure threshold, and because of the whole physical addictiveness of the drug, they’re also suseptible to withdrawl seizures.

Ever since I met Rob, I’ve been making speculations about epilepsy, specifically concerning his case, and I’ve discovered quite a few things about him.  One, stress makes him have a petit mal seizure.  There was a period there when he first started working at Subway where every other day, he was having a petit mal, and it was happening at around the same time.  So I asked what happened to him throughout the day up to that period, which was about two thirty.  He told me nothing unusual, he worked there, it got busy around lunch, it got insane around twelve-thirty, and it stayed steadily busy/insane until about two.  So, viola! stress was triggering him.  So I told him to take a few minutes right after things calmed down and think about something that relaxed him.  A little mental way of unwinding without necessarily having to stop working.  And it worked!  At this point, he’s stopped having petit mals.  Now, if we can just get him to stop having grand mals, we’re good.    Although unfortunately, that’s a lot easier said than done.

Lol, he keeps saying how he can’t wait to get his license so he can pile stuff on me like I’m always doing to him in the car.  I keep telling him no problem.  Quit having seizures and get your license.  Being able to pile stuff on me in the car should seriously be more than enough impotus.

Yeah, I tease him about this stuff.  Honestly, I think he’s taken it far too seriously for far too long.  So I joke with him about seizures and all that.  And I’m glad, because he’s taken to teasing himself about them, too.  And I love how the people at his job have reacted about it.  He’s had grand mals there, too, in addition to the petit mals, and you know what?  First, the manager’s awesome about it, he lets Rob take a breather and all that, makes sure he’s okay, and the other guys nicknamed Rob "Twitch."  Lol, I love that.  And Rob’s actually taken it as a nickname.

Krystle, any Q’s?  Or for that matter, anyone who reads this, feel free to ask, and I’ll answer as best I can.  Just remember, my experience with epilepsy is based on what I’ve learned from websites and seen in Rob, so anything that I comment on won’t necessarily be true for another epileptic.