Social beliefs and seizures

Often, when people do not understand something, they create a story to explain and understand the concept or the phenomenon that they witnessed a one time and seizures is one of them. When I was a child, I was affected by Epileptic seizures and was confronted by some of these beliefs. I want you to know that these beliefs do not reflect reality in any way.

• As a child, my parents felt responsible of my seizures disorder. They felt that they were bad parents or that their genes created this health issue. Even after the doctor investigated and reassured them that two traumas to the head (once at birth by the forceps and once during a fall at three years old) and no parenting skills or genes were the cause, my father is still up to this day feeling responsible for this. As I mentioned in previous articles, trauma can be one of the causes of seizures. Genes may be another issue but was not in my case.

• My grandmother used to make me say a prayer every night saying that special prayer would ask God's forgiveness of my parents sins and would eventually stopped my seizures. When I entered my teens and that I no longer needed medication to control my seizures due to the hormonal changes, my grandmother was saying: "I told you that God would forgive your parents sins with this prayer." I am a religious person myself but even as a child, I knew that God was forgiving sins all the time and that he was not punishing me for my parents sins.

• Another belief is that a person that is suffering from seizures used to be called "possessed by demons" when in fact, the tonic and clonic movements during seizures are basically related to the overpowering reactions of the brain.

• One of these beliefs is also that someone that has a seizures disorder has lower intellectual abilities than others. This is false! If a persons reactions are slower than usual, it is probably caused by the side effects related to the medication that he uses to control his seizures. These medications are often strong and so are their side effects.

As you can see, people who are uninformed can misunderstand and misinterpret such a condition. What can you do about it? Inform yourself and then share that information with others. The more are informed, the less they tend to create false stories to explain something unknown to them.

EEG and seizures

This is a great example of an EEG on a child.

An EEG also known as an Electroencephalogram is a tool that is used to discover the abnormalities in the functioning of the brain by reading the brain waves of each of the sections of it.

The brain sends and receives messages from different parts of the body that are like electric impulses sent and received by the brain cells also known as the neurons. During the test, the doctor will study the reactions of the brain by doing experiments such as using flashing lights at different speeds, having a sleep deprived patient following certains instructions such as staring at a blinking light or opening and closing of the eyes, sometimes having them sleep for periods of time or testing the reflexes. These tests are used to study the brain waves when weakened and some may even trigger convulsions which would help the doctor to locate more easily the malfunctioning part of the brain.

This test has a history of its own. Years ago, and maybe even nowadays, it used to be little needles directly poked into the scalp. There also is a cap which is painless. Some also use some receptors glued to the head. Either one of them is quite efficient.

This test is usually prescribed to determine if the convulsions are caused by stress, fevers, brain damage, malfunctioning of the brain, sugar levels, etc. It usually last an hour and you should be at the hospital at least half an hour prior to this test as you will be asked to fill a questionnaire. Also, if there are some specific process to follow, please to so meticulously as othewise, the test would be negatively affected and you might have to come back to do it another time.