A Common Occurrence

Fainting in the presence of a rock star, feeling dizzy after rising too quickly from a lying position, blacking out while giving blood, losing consciousness after an excess of drugs or alcohol-these experiences represent changes in people all the time. Mostly they are relatively minor inconveniences resulting from various forms of physical, emotional, or chemical stress. A tiny number of such occurrences, however, may be caused by more serious conditions such as multiple sclerosis, cardiac arrhythmias, serious infections, and brain damage or brain tumors, or by withdrawal from drugs, alcohol, toxins or medications.

What are Seizures?

A seizure is a special type of change in consciousness. Seizures occur when the brain discharges an abnormal amount of electrical energy and can be said to "short circuit." The "short" may affect any pat of the brain. That's why seizures vary greatly in form, duration, and intensity.

Seizures can range from a total lapse of consciousness with stiffening and jerking of the whole body to just staring off into space with a lapse of consciousness that lasts only a few seconds or the seizure may involve a single twitch of some body part, such as the face or hand or foot.

Most people who experience a seizure never have another-that seizure having been caused by great stress-such as excessive excitement, deprivation of sleep, withdrawal from drugs. In fact, about five percent of the American population will have a seizure at some point in their lives.

Forms of Seizures

Some other varieties of seizure are drop attacks- a sudden loss of muscle power to the legs)the victim falls but recovers very quickly, with no loss of consciousness); narcolepsy or sleep attacks(suddenly falling asleep at unpredictable moments); and transient global amnesia(loss of memory for several hours of the day).

Epilepsy

People who suffer from recurrent seizures are said to have epilepsy(also called "episodes," "fits," attacks," or spells"). Only about 0.5 to 1 percent of the people who experience a seizure(about 1 out of 200) will develop epilepsy.

Misconceptions

If you're going to do something different with your life because you've found out you've got a disease, then you're not living as you should be.

-Arlo Guthrie

Let's first dispel some misconceptions about epilepsy: Epileptics do not suffer from a shortened life span, mental retardation, or insanity. Seizures are not generally considered to be hereditary.

Epileptics do, however, need compassionate understanding:

The family helps to determine what kind of life the epileptic person will live. Lowered expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies. An adult who is expected to take little responsibility within the family because of having epilepsy often [becomes] an unprepared adult...Most people with epilepsy are able to lead virtually normal lives. Informed and understanding families are vitally important in helping them to do so.

Epileptics can engage in almost all activities, including sports; in fact, many athletes as well as actors, generals, writer, painters, scientists, and philosophers have been (and are) epileptics.

The Aura Before the Seizures

Half of all epileptics experience an aura, a sensation or feeling that warns of an impending seizure(migraine sufferers may also experience an aura).

Auras may take many forms:

A tingling, a strange smell; emotional-a feeling of ecstasy; or it may be the experience of deja vu.

During a Seizure

Although often frightening to witness, seizures are generally neither harmful nor painful. Once a seizure is in progress it cannot be stopped and no attempt should be made to stop it. The person should be kept comfortable, away from sharp objects and out of harm's way, and if possible, turned to one side to allow saliva to flow from the mouth to permit easier breathing. It is not necessary, however, as myth would have it, to pry open the victim's jaws and insert a spoon to prevent swallowing one's tongue.

Suffocation or death during a seizure is extremely rare.

Causes of Epilepsy

It is not known how individual seizures start, why they stop, or why they recur with seemingly random incidence over time. It is known, however, that brain damage before or at birth; head trauma; childhood immunization; an infection such as meningitis or encephalitis that might scar the brain; a brain tumor; a stroke; lead poisoning; a degenerative brain disease are all factors that may damage the brain and cause seizures.

The Medical Approach

There is no drug cure for epilepsy, and few patients derive any benefit from drug therapy:

Seizure control is achieved for two years in 30 to 37 per cent of patients, but this figure falls to approximately 20 per cent at five years and 10 per cent at 10 years....Some patients suffer more from chronic toxicity-due to anticonvulsants-than from their seizure disorder.

Further, since most people who have a seizure never have more than one, it is wisest for the victim not to take any medication unless the seizure recurs.

Drugs are chosen by physicians to control seizures primarily on the basis of trial and error. Some of the more commonly used are Dilantin, phenobarbital, Tegretal, valproic acid, and clonazepam. There are few, if any, controlled clinical studies on these drugs-their relative merits, their toxicity, their side effects. No one knows, for example, the long-term effects of giving anticonvulsant drugs to children.

Side Effects

The long list of side effects from the above mentioned drugs(including fatigue, apathy, severe lethargy, blurred vision, slurred speech, clumsy movements) caused Samuel Livingston, M.D., and his colleagues to write in the April 1979 issues of Pediatric Annals:

Some patients may be better off leading a more normal life between occasional seizures than they would if they lived seizure-free in a perpetual state of drug-induced drowsiness and confusion.

Surgery

Some epileptics whose seizures cannot be controlled with medication will be candidates for brain surgery in which the part of the brain where the seizure appears to have originated is cut away. After surgery about 75 percent of patients suffer no further seizures, of less severe ones; about 25 percent are not helped.

Seizures and Pregnancy

Violent convulsions present a special risk to the unborn child; they can cause hypoxia or acidosis, as well as pressure on the mother's abdomen and the fetus- all of which are factors that can lead to miscarriage and possibly congenital anomalies.

Anticonvulsant drugs, however, introduce the risk of mental retardation, tumors , or birth defects such as cleft lip, cleft palate, or other malformations. The risk versus the benefit of taking these drugs must be weighed and very carefully since "the safety of most anticonvulsants in pregnancy has not been adequately determined". Pregnant women would be wise to seek out nonmedical alternatives.

The Chiropractic Approach

Chiropractic has been a great blessing to epileptics. Case reports of seizures greatly lessening in intensity and frequency or simply disappearing after care often appear in the chiropractic literature. And yet the doctor of chiropractic does not treat epilepsy but rather corrects spinal nerve stress, also known as vertebral subluxations. Thus it is often said that chiropractic is for people, not diseases.

Without(or with reduced) spinal nerve stress, the body functions better, and its natural self-healing ability reawakens. This ability is especially obvious in children who, having had primary generalized epilepsy and no underlying structural lesion, often "outgrow" their seizures during their adulthood.

Spinal Injury as a Cause of Seizures

Spinal damage has been related to many neurological conditions. Physical trauma is noted as the one cause of epilepsy that is seen in every age group. Although it has been well documented that epilepsy occurs when there is a "short circuit" in the brain, there is the distinct possibility that a trauma may produce a lesion in the brain stem or upper spinal cord which may in turn cause seizures to originate in the spine and its immediate connections.

Most unfortunately, trauma victims are not routinely checked for spinal nerve stress in hospitals. It would be ideal if doctors of chiropractic were on staff in every emergency room to check the spine of anyone who has suffered any kind of trauma. Because this is not yet a reality, it is up to the victim to seek out necessary chiropractic care. Sadly, that occurs in only a minority of trauma occurrences.