Seizures can change your life

Carolina Villasenor was just weeks away from graduating from Sequoia High School in 2002 when her life changed.

She was an active girl, who enjoyed athletics, badminton in particular. At the time, the 17-year-old suffered from epilepsy which caused her to have seizures. She agreed to have brain surgery which would reduce the chance of the seizures by 90 percent.

During the surgery, Villasenor suffered a stroke.

“I woke up and I tried to turn to the side and my arm wouldn’t move. Turns out my left side was paralyzed,” she said.

Villasenor had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks, causing her to drop out of high school. Regardless of her condition, she wanted to remain independent.

“They wanted to you know, help me to the bathroom, but I would rather take myself even if it meant I had my leg dragging behind me,” she said.

After about six months of physical therapy, she was back to normal but not quite ready to head back to school. She did however, decide to start a family. Villasenor married in 2003 and gave birth to her daughter, Natalia, the following year.

Shortly after, she decided it was time. The experience in the hospital had actually turned Villasenor on to the medical profession, one she hadn’t considered before.

Simultaneously Villasenor decided to attend Sequoia Adult School to finish her high school diploma and start at Bryman College to become a medical assistant. Now 21, she finished Bryman in December and will have the chance to participate in both graduation ceremonies this month.

Although Villasenor struggled with a bought of depression right after her stroke, she said the experience has made her a bit more sentimental.

“I look at things now in a really positive way,” she said. “I’m definitely not as negative as I used to be.”

Seizures, source of hope and fears!

Lorelei McKay awoke with a nervous feeling. The pain came when she coughed.
She could feel where the surgeon had drilled four holes in her head just hours earlier. Neurosurgeon Istvan Takacs had put pea pod-shaped electrodes on the surface of her naked brain.

Gray electrical cords snaked from the white bandages on her head, down the side of the bed, across the floor and up to the video-EEG machine that would capture the activities of her brain and body when she had a seizure. Rows and rows of waves rippled across the machine’s computer screen, each representing electrical activity in a different part of Lorelei’s brain.

Someone had to be in the room with her at all times to call a nurse and hit a button to mark the EEG chart when the seizures came.

Lorelei was ready for them, and she wanted them to come strong and plentiful. Funny, because she had been trying to get rid of those same seizures for the past year and a half. But having seizures now was her best chance to eliminate them forever.

Epilepsy had struck her suddenly in 2004 over the July 4 weekend, changing her from an outgoing entrepreneur to a dependent shut-in.

Her situation seemed hopeless, until she was referred to Dr. Jonathan Halford, a neurologist at the Medical University of South Carolina.

There was a surgery — called lobectomy — that could eliminate her seizures, he told her. These holes in her head were a last step to pinpoint the part of her brain that was damaged. Then surgeons could remove it.

But first, she had to have seizures. She settled in and waited for them to start.
Three days came and went.

No seizures.

She had stopped taking her anti-epilepsy medications, but it seemed that wasn’t enough. Her brain needed a little coaxing.

Sleep deprivation had led to seizures in the past, so her doctor asked her to try to stay awake for extended periods. She hardly slept for several days until Dr. Halford warned her that lack of sleep could make her psychotic.

Anyway, it wasn’t working. They had to try something else.

Technician Maryhelen Britt brought in a pedal and a strobe light attached to a rolling stand. Lorelei pumped the pedal for a few minutes, then Britt flashed the strobe lights in her face for three minutes. Lorelei’s eyes burned as she tried to stare at the lights. Britt told her she could close her eyes; it’s the brain, not the eyes, that the lights were meant to stimulate.

Next came hyperventilation exercises. For three minutes, Lorelei breathed rapidly with her mouth open.

“How are you feeling, Lorelei?” Britt asked at the end of the routine.
“Tingly,” came the answer. “My skin is crawling on my neck.”

Still, no seizures.

Only pain.

Lorelei had a splitting headache, and her jaw ached where the surgeon had cut through the temporalis muscle.

After falling asleep one evening, Lorelei awoke with a start, her heart pounding and her mind confused.

A seizure!

Her husband, Rob, pressed “the button” and called a nurse.
The nurse found no seizure activity on the EEG. False alarm.

WAITING ...

While Lorelei waited for real seizures, a doctor had to re-stitch her scalp. Cerebrospinal fluid had seeped from her head, staining her bandage and pillow yellow. When she sat up so the doctor could better see where to stitch, some of the wetness from her scalp spilled onto her shirt.
“I started laughing, but I wanted to cry,” she said.

But crying would just make her head hurt more, and all she really wanted to do was have a seizure.
The pain in her jaw eased, so Lorelei could pick at some stewed beef, rice, vegetables, banana pudding and apple juice from her hospital lunch tray. She thought about how much her time in Charleston was seeming less and less like a hospital stay.

“For me it’s like a vacation — people serving me hand and foot,” she joked. “Other than this head problem, it’s an improvement over being at home all day. It’s great.”

She passed the time by chatting up attendants and nurses —some even came to visit because they remembered her from her hospital visit the previous year.

As time dragged on, however, her life of leisure began to frustrate her. On the fifth day of her stay, Lorelei swapped her hospital gown for a navy blue-and-white calico shirt, tan sweat pants, and black-and-gray Joe Boxer socks. Putting on more clothes wasn’t something Lorelei always had done willingly — as a child, she would shed her clothes and streak through the house and yard to the amusement of her family and neighbors.

Under the hospital lighting, she dabbed on face powder and pink lipstick from a cosmetics bag she kept nearby. She brushed the stringy red strands of unwashed hair that peeked out from the bottom of her bandage, and curled them with a hot iron.

“It just feels like such a pathetic attempt at looking human,” she said. “This might seem silly, but you feel better when you do something.”

She fussed around, tidying the room so much that her surgeon jokingly suggested she might look into choosing new wallpaper. She tried to do crossword puzzles but couldn’t get past the first clue. She didn’t get far with the books she’d brought, either — a religion-history book, old issues of Country Living magazine from her mother and a little New Testament and Psalms. Finally, she decided to while the hours away by counting the blips running across the computer screen.

At one point, the EEG trace disappeared from the screen. The computer had run out of memory. A nurse got it going again, after much tinkering and the aid of a technician on the other end of the phone line.

“You’re the one who’s supposed to be having the seizure, not the computer,” said Rob, who was on that shift of Lorelei’s seizure watch.

Rob did word search puzzles; read “Spurs and Feathers,” a magazine about sports at his alma mater, USC; and watched ESPN’s SportsCenter on a loop.

“I’m actually just brain dead,” he said. The waiting was driving him crazy, too.

“Have a seizure,” Rob said to Lorelei.

“It’s bad to be wishing seizures on her,” he said, “but that’s why we’re here.”

The sooner she had a seizure, the sooner they could stop racking up hospital bills, and Rob could stop losing money by staying away from his commission-paid job.

Luckily, the couple had good insurance coverage.

Lorelei’s mother, Rob’s parents and other family members had taken turns driving from Columbia to relieve Rob.

“It’s a big fiasco,” Lorelei said. “Everybody’s having to go through all that just to sit with me.”

Why wasn’t she having seizures? She tried to diagnose the problem. Was she eating less than she usually did at home? Was she too relaxed? Her thoughts, questions and doubts overwhelmed her. She crumpled in tears.

Even though she hadn’t had seizures yet, the doctors were learning something from her EEG. The abnormalities on the chart — sharp spikes that lasted for just fractions of a second throughout the day, and the same types that occurred repeatedly during a seizure — were showing up in the frontal lobe of her brain.

If she had frontal-lobe epilepsy, she still could have a lobectomy — but not at MUSC, which offers only temporal lobectomies. She would have to go to Duke Medical Center in North Carolina. Or she could have a pacemaker-type implant — a vagus nerve stimulator — that could sense and disrupt an oncoming seizure.

Lorelei’s 28th birthday rolled around 11 days after she entered the hospital. Her parents gave her a sewing machine.

What she really wanted was seizures.

Instead, a week after her birthday — almost three weeks after she had entered the hospital — doctors told her they would remove the electrodes from her brain.

Her heart sank.

She would not be cured.

What would people think about all the time she had spent in the hospital?

There would be questions.

And comments.

And jokes.

And whispers.

People had asked why she was so intent on having surgery. Why not wait the seizures out? Some thought she was wasting money by traveling to Charleston. Some thought she was faking the whole epilepsy thing. It all got to her, and sometimes she wondered whether she really had seizures.

MYSTERY

Why had they stopped as unceremoniously as they’d started?

She didn’t know.

The doctors didn’t know.

“It made me second-guess whether she had epilepsy in the first case,” neurologist Halford said. “I really do believe she had epilepsy... . I just don’t know what to say about it.”

Other doctors weren’t sure what to say, either.

“The functioning of the brain remains one of the greatest mysteries in science,” said Adam Mamelak, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who specializes in epilepsy surgery. “The fact that the brain works at all. The fact that we aren’t all having a hundred seizures a day, and on top of that the capacity of being creative; the fact that we have conscious and unconscious behavior.”

Considering that the brain is a massive integrated computer made up hundreds of billions of cells each connected to thousands of others, “it’s not terribly surprising that we don’t understand these basic things,” said David Eagleman, a theoretical neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Texas Medical Center at Houston.“A single cell in the brain is about as complicated as a city is.”

Until the basic mysteries of the normal brain are unraveled, it’s difficult to even begin to try to understand disorders such as epilepsy, said Eagleman, author of “Ten Unsolved Questions in Neuroscience,” to be published later this year by MIT Press.

Current research into understanding epilepsy includes trying to figure out what genes are involved in genetic epilepsies, and by what mechanisms. Researchers are trying to develop ways to better pinpoint where in the brain seizures arise; others are trying to develop drugs that disrupt pathways involved in epilepsy. Still others test those drugs clinically.

LORELEI’S LIFE NOW

Lorelei left the hospital Nov. 2, 2005, with as many questions as she’d taken with her. And disappointment had forced hope out of her heart.

The bright side was that she was taking a very small dose of medicine, and still her seizures had not come back.

Maybe she had been cured without the surgery.

A miracle?

Surely this couldn’t last.

She was stuck at home with her uncertainty. She didn’t know when the next big seizure would hit her.

A month after leaving the hospital, she stopped going outdoors with the cats and started sleeping longer than usual.

She felt like a huge burden to Rob.

She wondered how many painkillers she would have to take to fall asleep and not wake up.
Her stress was Rob’s stress.

“You’re trying to console your wife every day ... not just because something happened,” he said. “How do I deal with this situation, plus depression?”

Lorelei went back to see Dr. Halford three days before Christmas and got a prescription for the antidepressant Cymbalta and the sleep aid Ambien. The doctor also increased the prescribed dosage of her anti-seizure medication by half a tablet. She declined his offer of a visit with a psychiatrist.

The antidepressant soon helped her to feel better.

But within the next few months, she started waking up at night with her heart racing, teeth clenched, body jerking, difficulty breathing, dizziness, hyperventilation and headache.

The episodes were similar to the ones she had before the first big one hit her in mid-2004. In the daytime, she would stare into space, feel tingling or shaking in her face, or start stuttering uncontrollably. But at least she wasn’t losing consciousness during the day.

Dr. Halford increased her medicine dosage again, and that reduced the symptoms.
But they didn’t go away.

While waiting to see what would become of her, Lorelei carried on with her life.

“I’ve been a lot more active, more productive, working on a lot of little projects,” she said.

She sewed a bathroom curtain for her father’s birthday, and a pink-and-green quilt and Care Bear pillows for her nieces. She started going to auctions and estate sales as she had before the seizures.

But Lorelei, a former bookkeeper, was having trouble cataloguing her inventory using a basic computer spreadsheet.

Rob would tell her, for example, how many items came in a package, then ask her to subtract the number of missing items to find out how many they had in hand. She could hear him, but she just couldn’t do the math. Even if he repeated it.

“I just want to cry, because it doesn’t make any more sense to you than the first time, even if they repeat it or say it louder,” she said. “I’m hearing numbers, but they’re not making sense.”

Lorelei froze in the supermarket while trying to write checks. She got stuck in conversation with store clerks. At her yard sale, Lorelei asked a woman to figure out her own change, and the woman stung her with, “You must be a product of the public school system.”

Incidents like those left her embarrassed and frustrated.

And tired.

At seven months after leaving the hospital, the little seizures weren’t going away.
And they were eerily similar to the ones she’d had just before the first big one struck.

Shaken baby syndrome responsible for baby's seizures!

A mother's weeping punctuated a sentencing hearing yesterday for the man who violently shook their baby last year, causing severe and permanent injuries.The woman, whose attorney said her client wanted the father punished, ran from the courtroom wailing after Judge Theodore Tyma sentenced Kendu Newkirk, 31, of Stamford to eight years in prison.

Newkirk shook his 11-week-old daughter late on May 10, 2005, because she wouldn't stop crying, authorities said. The baby was rushed to Stamford Hospital after Newkirk reportedly noticed she wasn't breathing properly and went limp when he picked her up.The baby suffered skull fractures and brain bleeding, doctors said. She was transferred to Yale-New-Haven Hospital because of the seriousness of her injuries.

During yesterday's hearing at state Superior Court, Tyma said Newkirk's actions had "horrific consequences.""This baby will never, never function normally," said Stamford attorney Lisa Kouzoujian, who represents the mother.Senior Assistant State's Attorney Richard Colangelo said the 15-month-old infant is legally blind in one eye, suffers seizures, doesn't sit up or crawl and has the mental capacity of a 3-to-5-month-old.Arguing for a 10-year prison sentence, Colangelo said Newkirk's assault was "probably one of the worst cases of child abuse" the prosecutor has seen."She's not going to be able to play with her siblings," he said.

"She's not going to be able to . . . go to school like a normal child."Kouzoujian said the incident was devastating to the family. The mother's children were removed from her home, and she may never regain custody of her baby, the attorney said.The infant lives in a therapeutic foster home in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families. The mother is trying to get back three children who aren't Newkirk's, Kouzoujian said.

Authorities still don't know the full story of what happened to the baby, as doctors found old and new brain wounds and skull fractures resulting from more than one impact to the head, Colangelo said.Newkirk faced four to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in February to first-degree assault and two counts of risk of injury to a minor.Tyma cited the severity of the baby's injuries yesterday in handing down Newkirk's sentence, which includes seven years of special parole. Another factor in Tyma's decision was Newkirk's initial failure to admit responsibility and help doctors by providing a proper history, he said.

"You did not accept or admit your responsibility at the time that your daughter most needed it . . ." Tyma told Newkirk.Newkirk admitted he shook the baby 21Ú2 months later, after police said they would administer a polygraph, the judge said.Public defender Howard Ehring asked for a four-year prison term, saying Newkirk took responsibility for his mistake, admitting he lost his temper and shook the baby.Ehring said it was important to consider the type of father Newkirk was before the incident.

He sometimes held two jobs and had arrived home tired after working a double shift before shaking the crying baby in a "burst of frustration," the attorney said."He loved her very much," Ehring said.Newkirk looked upward and appeared overcome with emotion when offered the chance to address the court yesterday."I don't think he can speak, your honor," Ehring said.

Special diet for children to control Epileptic seizures

Special diet helps control children's epilepsy

One of the treatments that is used to help control epilepsy in children is through strict monitoring of the food intake of that child. One diet plan in particular has had very positive results in decreasing the amount of seizures taken by a child, that being the Ketogenic diet.

The Ketogenic diet is based on providing high fat/low carb diet promoting the body to use the extra fat source to create energy. Ketones are compounds that are created as a result of the extra energy in the body, and it is these compounds that are linked to the reduction of a child's seizures.
There are numerous side affects to the diet due to the body's inability to handle the high fat portion, some of which including; kidney stones, loss of bone density, dehydration, constipation and vomiting.

Realizing that something had to be done, Doctors have been looking for modifications to the diet's core that would help a child cope better while still providing them with the proper benefits that it offers. Recently Doctors have started putting their young patients on a softer form of the diet, which allows them to eat more carbs, unlimitted protein, and higher fiber. It has long been believed that a healthy diet balanced with all the necessary nutrients would promote a healthy person, and this is the direction that is being taken by today's doctors.

Children with seizures...a fact of life for 3% of them!

Seizures:

Three percent of children will have oneBy Mary Christine Bailey, MD, FAAP/ What’s Going Around?Friday, May 19, 2006A mother brings her 2-year-old son to the emergency room. His whole body was shaking and she says it lasted two to three minutes. He’s got a high fever and it’s determined he had a simple seizure caused by his high temperature - known as a febrile seizure.

What is a seizure?

Approximately three percent of children will have a seizure before they are 15 years old and half of these seizures will be a febrile seizure. This is the most common type of seizure in children. These seizures occur during an illness accompanied by a fever and affect approximately five percent of children. Generally, children who have a febrile seizure will have their first one by age 2 and 25 percent of children who have one will have more than one. Seizures happen when the electrical system in the brain fires abnormally.

There are many types of seizure disorders. Some involve the whole body and result in generalized convulsions or contraction of the muscles without convulsions. Others involve only one portion of the body. Sometimes this type can move from one portion of the body to another during the seizure.

Children can also experience absence seizures. In this type of seizure the child stares or blinks for a period of time and returns to normal when the seizure stops but has no memory of the episode. Another common type of seizure results in repetitive movements. The child is often confused and dazed when the activity stops. Epilepsy is the name given to seizure disorders that are recurring.

What should you do?

1. Check to make sure your child is breathing and call 911 immediately if they are not breathing or if you cannot tell.

2. Lie the child down away from anything that could hurt them.

3. Do not put anything into your child’s mouth.

4. Lay your child on his or her side after the seizure stops to prevent choking should they vomit.

5. Rectal Tylenol can be given for a fever.

6. Do not give your child anything by mouth until they are fully awake and acting normally again.

How is it treated?

All children who seize for the first time need medical evaluation. The type of testing required depends on the type of seizure the child experienced. For febrile seizures that last a short time and are generalized, blood testing for infection may be all that is needed. Other types of seizures often require a more extensive evaluation and may include: blood work, CT Scan and/or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and often an electroencephalogram (EEG).

Many children who seize will only do so once, so the decision to start seizure medication will depend on the type of seizure and the findings during testing. The child’s pediatrician and a pediatric neurologist will work together to decide if a seizure medication is necessary.

In addition to consulting with a pediatrician, school-aged children diagnosed with epilepsy will need to have special instructions given to their teachers and the school nurse. Your pediatrician will help you develop a plan for the school should a seizure occur. Children with epilepsy are able to participate in sports and other normal activities, but keep in mind they should never swim without a fully trained lifeguard or responsible, knowledgeable adult present.

Is it hereditary?

Although some types of seizures are more common in certain families, for example children who have one or more first-degree relatives with a history of febrile seizures do have an increased incidence of febrile seizures during childhood, in general epilepsy is not an inherited problem. There is evidence that some people have a low seizure threshold, which can be passed onto their children. Epilepsy can also be a symptom of other inherited problems. In addition, certain types of epilepsy do seem to run in families.

These types include:

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Benign Rolandic Epilepsy

Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy

Since epilepsy and inheritance is such a complicated topic, you should discuss any concerns and questions with your child’s pediatrician. If they decide it is appropriate they may then refer your family to a genetic counselor.

Mary Christine Bailey, MD, FAAP, is Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Board certified in pediatric emergency medicine, she has written for various medical textbooks. Dr. Bailey lives in Newton with her husband and is the mother of three grown sons.

Febrile seizures in children

Anyone of any age, can potentially have a seizure and develop epilepsy: approximately one in 200 people have epilepsy, and more than one in 100 will have a seizure in their lifetimes.

Rachel Botma heard a hoarse cry from the upstairs bedroom and found her healthy three-year-old, Sophie, unconscious on the floor, blue in the face and unresponsive. Earlier that day the little girl had been irritable and had felt warm. A minute or so later, Sophie had come round, but was groggy and initially seemed not to recognise her mother.

At the hospital an hour later, the child remained subdued, but was more alert, and physical examination was normal except for a reddened, sore throat and a slight fever.

Children often develop uncomplicated fevers, but in a few cases, mostly in the six-month to five-year age range, these are associated with an epileptic seizure – a frightening experience for parents (the child rapidly loses consciousness and is unaware of what has just happened). These so-called febrile seizures occur in 2-4% of children, and are the most common form of paediatric seizure.

Resolve within minutesMost febrile seizures, known as "simple" febrile seizures, are generalised convulsions that resolve within a few minutes and occur only once. Even for those that do recur (about a third) with another fever in the next year or two, the outcome is very good: neurological development is quite normal, and only a small number (about one in 20 children) go on to have epilepsy as adults. On the other hand, many adult epileptics will have had febrile seizures as children.

When a child has experienced a febrile seizure, it is important to seek medical attention. Meningitis and encephalitis need to be excluded as the possible source of the fever – these infections can produce seizures in their own right. If the seizure has settled and the child seems well, further investigations (such as brain scanning and lumbar puncture) and hospitalisation will usually not be necessary. In general, measures are taken to bring the temperature down, and the source of the fever (often a simple sore throat or viral infection) may require specific treatment.

Prophylactic anti-seizure medications are generally not used, as their side-effects tend to outweigh their modest effect of preventing recurrence. Occasionally diazepam (Valium) is helpful in the case of unusually prolonged ("complex") febrile seizures.

Student had seizures while swimming!

Friday morning, a Warren Woods Tower High School freshman suffered a seizure while in swim class.

The female student was swimming when she experienced the seizure.

Warren Schools Superintendent Robert Livernois said, "She slipped underwater and was successfully pulled from the water and resuscitated by our trained staff."

The student was conscious when she was taken to the hospital.

Livernois said he is proud of the quick response of the teacher who followed the schools crisis protocol.

"These crisis plans are written and documented and kept in each teacher’s possession during the course of the school day. What it does is it helps provide some stability in difficult situations and this is a perfect example," he said.

It is unclear whether the student had seizures before Friday’s incident. The student was in stable condition at St. John Macomb Hospital and is expected to recover.

Grateful about treatments of Epileptic seizures, a teen wants to give...

One local teen wants to thank the hospital where he was successfully treated for his epileptic seizures.

"When I would walk up to Children’s Hospital, they had this banner that stated ’Best hospital in the nation,’" said Barry Kriegsman, a high school sophomore. "I just wanted children who go there now to be able to feel the same experiences I did."

Kriegsman is organizing the first Holliston 5K Road Race to benefit Children’s Hospital Boston, scheduled for 9 a.m. on Sunday at Holliston High School. The registration fee of $10 per person will help hospital patients who cannot afford the costs of treatment, pay for new equipment and staff training.

"I just wanted to do something for them," he said.

As a second-grader, Kriegsman suffered absence seizures -- a form of epilepsy -- and began six years of treatment at Children’s Hospital in Boston.

According to Children’s Hospital, about 5 percent of all children will experience a seizure and 1 percent will develop epilepsy. About 55,000 new cases of epilepsy, when temporary disturbances affect electrical activity in the brain, are diagnosed every year.

Lauren Collard, the hospital special events officer, said about $1 million annually is raised through fund-raisers like Kriegsman’s race. While fund-raisers from grateful patients are common, Kriegsman is unusually young to organize an event.

"It’s not a tough sell when you’re helping sick children," said Collard.

Kriegsman said doctors used a special computer program to determine the specific reason why he was having seizures and improved his treatment with medication.

Doctors also encouraged him to control his hyperventilation -- which appeared to spur additional seizures -- through running. The combined treatment worked: he hasn’t experienced a seizure in more than four years, he said.

"Right now, I’m all cured," he said. "They did a really great job."

Kriegsman’s new road race already has earned $1,700 for the hospital and registered more than 100 participants, he said. He expects to raise more than $2,000 and that about 150 runners will take part Sunday.

He’ll be pulling double-duty this weekend, as he will participate in fellow Holliston resident Marshall Cohen’s "Bike for Breath" on Saturday. Cohen’s ride benefits research into the lung disease lymphangioleiomyomatosis.

His high school running coaches, both expected to help with Sunday’s road race, said the young runner is making a difference. Kriegsman is a member of the school’s track and cross country teams.

Boys track coach Sam Blackmore said it’s surprising someone as young as Kriegsman could organize a road race. "It’s a particularly big undertaking for a sophomore in high school," said Blackmore.

Kriegsman sets a high standard for his peers, said cross country coach Phil Ryan.

"Being able to help him out and go with the flow has been an experience," said Ryan. "He’s a role model, not just for his teammates, but for any kid."

Woman suffers from seizures...in a courtroom!

Linton woman facing a possible prison sentence of more than 30 years on two felony counts - involving sexual misconduct charges - suffered a series of seizures while on the witness stand during the closing moments of her initial hearing in Greene Circuit Court on Tuesday morning.

Paula Giles, 46, was being arraigned on a charge of Aiding in Sexual Misconduct with a Minor - a class B felony - and Neglect of a Dependent - a class D felony - when she was stricken ill.

A Greene County Ambulance Service unit transported Giles to Greene County General Hospital in Linton for emergency room treatment after the incident. She was not admitted, according to a hospital spokesperson.

Despite her illness, the hearing was concluded and a jury trial was set for 9 a.m. on Nov. 14. A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for 8:15 a.m. on Nov. 1. James Reister was appointed her pauper attorney and she initially entered a not guilty plea.

Giles was arrested in connection with a case that was filed by Linton Police Department Det. Troy Jerrell on April 7.

The Linton Police Department received a Crime Stoppers telephone tip on Dec. 13, 2005 alerting them that a 21-year-old adult male was living with his girlfriend, who was approximately 14 years old, and her parents. The caller told police that the daughter and her boyfriend had been sexually active.

Det. Jerrell and Greene County Child Protection caseworker Kathy Lawrence went to the Giles residence on SW 6th Street in Linton and talked about the case.

The mother told police that her teen daughter was sleeping in the same bed with her 21-year-old boyfriend who lived with them. She also said she had knowledge that the couple was being “intimate or sexually active together,” and said she had her daughter on birth control pills, Jerrell wrote in his probable cause affidavit.

Her boyfriend also told police that he and his girlfriend had been sexually active for the past several months, according to court records.

Jerrell also wrote in his probable cause affidavit, “This officer believes Mrs. Giles knowingly permitted a felony to take place in her household. In doing so, she had deprived her daughter of proper parental support and endangered her physical well being by possibly placing her at risk of sexual transmitted diseases at a young age.”

Conviction of a class B felony carries a possible prison sentence ranging between six and 28 years, while a conviction of a class D felony has a sentence between six months and three years, if found guilty. Both charges carry a fine of up to $10,000 each.

The affidavit for probable cause was approved by Circuit Judge David Johnson on April 11.
Giles was originally scheduled to appear for her initial hearing on May 4, but failed to show. The hearing was rescheduled for Tuesday.

New therapy to treat myoclonic seizures

UCB announced that the European Commission has approved the use of Keppra® (levetiracetam) as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of myoclonic seizures in adults and adolescents from 12 years of age with Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME). Keppra® is the first and only newer anti-epileptic drug approved in Europe for the treatment of myoclonic seizures in JME. "Keppra® has over one million patient years' experience and continues to help many people with partial-onset seizures. This new indication supports Keppra®'s established efficacy and we are pleased that Keppra® is now available to patients with myoclonic seizures in JME", said Troy Cox, President CNS Operations, UCB. JME is a common epilepsy syndrome that usually starts between the ages of 12 and 18 and accounts for about 10% of all cases of epilepsy.1 It is characterized by myoclonic jerks that occur in 100% of cases, with many patients also experiencing generalized tonic-clonic and absence seizures.2,3 JME is frequently mis-diagnosed and this can lead to inappropriate treatment choices.4,5Dr Soheyl Noachtar, Head of the Epilepsy Centre, University of Munich, Germany, welcomed the new indication for Keppra® (levetiracetam): "In JME there is a need for AEDs that are well-tolerated and do not aggravate seizures. Keppra® helps to fulfil this niche with its proven efficacy and tolerability in treating myoclonic seizures in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy. In the well-controlled trial supporting this indication, 22% of Keppra® patients achieved complete seizure freedom throughout the 12-week evaluation period compared with only 2% of placebo patients. With seizure freedom being the ultimate goal of epilepsy management Keppra® may be a valuable addition to the clinician's armamentarium." This data supporting this new indication in Europe provides the first and only phase III, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled evidence on the safety and efficacy of an AED in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy experiencing myoclonic seizures. This data was reported at the 26th International Epilepsy Congress in Paris in August 2005.6 The indication for Keppra® in the U.S. is still under review by the FDA. About Keppra®In Europe, Keppra® (levetiracetam) is indicated as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of partial onset seizures with or without secondary generalization in adults and children from 4 years of age with epilepsy and as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of myoclonic seizures in adults and adolescents from 12 years of age with Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy.7 In Europe Keppra® is also indicated for intravenous administration and is available as 100mg/ml concentrate for solution for infusion. In the U.S., Keppra® is indicated as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of partial onset seizures in adults and children 4 years of age and older with epilepsy.10 Keppra® is associated with the occurrence of central nervous system adverse events including somnolence and fatigue, behavioural abnormalities, as well as haematological abnormalities. In adults, Keppra® is also associated with co-ordination difficulties. In paediatric patients 4-16 years of age, the most common adverse events associated with Keppra® in combination with other AEDs were somnolence, accidental injury, hostility, nervousness and asthenia. In adults, the most common adverse events associated with Keppra® in combination with other AEDs were somnolence, asthenia, infection and dizziness. Please consult local prescribing information. For the U.S., prescribing information is available at http://www.keppra.com.About UCBUCB (http://www.ucb-group.com) is a leading global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the research, development and commercialisation of innovative pharmaceutical and biotechnology products in the fields of central nervous system disorders, allergy/respiratory diseases, immune and inflammatory disorders and oncology - UCB focuses on securing a leading position in severe disease categories. Employing over 8,500 people in over 40 countries, UCB achieved revenue of 2.3 billion euro in 2005. UCB is listed on the Euronext Brussels Exchange with a market capitalisation of approximately 6.0 billion euro. Worldwide headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium. About Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy and Myoclonic SeizuresJME is classified as a type of idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), in which seizures result from excessive electrical activity in the whole brain.3 JME requires life-long treatment with anti-epileptic drugs.1 Myoclonic seizures are short, jerky muscle spasms that can occur once or repetitively, on one or both sides of the body.

The story of an Epilepsy sufferer

Susan Griffin has battled epilepsy for 27 years. As part of National Epilepsy Week she speaks to CORINNE MCPARTLAND about living with the condition and helping young sufferers.

SUSAN was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was eight years old, three months after suffering head injuries in a car crash.

Her mother Lynn Savill, of St George's Drive, Gravesham, was brushing her daughter's hair when she had her first epileptic fit.

She said: "Her eyes glazed over and she wouldn't speak.

"We didn't know it was a fit and it wasn't until she had a seizure at school she was diagnosed."

Susan, now 35, of Valley Drive, Gravesham, was put on 29 tablets a day and describes her time at St George's School as "a blurry haze because I was drugged up to the eyeballs.

"Children used to make fun of my seizures and tell people not to sit next to me in case they caught fits'."

Before each seizure Susan gets a metallic taste in her mouth.

She said: "I don't know what is happening until I come round and feel exhausted."

Susan was having more than 80 fits a day as a child but the seizures fell to around two a day when she started work in her early 20s.

When she was 25, Susan began to carve out a successful career as a personal assistant for a mailing company until she was hit by a motorbike after having a fit in the road.

She suffered shock but went back to work the next day.

But Susan believes she was sacked by a new manager a few months later because of her epilepsy.

At 28 she began working as a counsellor for the Gravesham Epilepsy Network, which was set up by her mother 25 years ago.

Lynn set up the organisation three years after Susan was diagnosed.

Lynn said: "There was no real information for people with epilepsy so I decided to set up a network."

‘You can live a normal, happy life with epilepsy.’

SUSAN GRIFFIN

She added: "People can call up and receive information as well as meet up with people and see they are not alone."

More than 456,000 people in the UK have epilepsy.

Epilepsy can develop at any age.

However, it is diagnosed most often before the age of 20 and after the age of 60.

Lynn was worried epilepsy would not let her daughter lead a normal life.

Susan said: "Lots of parents wrap their children in cotton wool and I'm glad mine didn't.

"My message to young people with epilepsy is to take every opportunity given to you.

"Don't become isolated and you can live a normal, happy life with epilepsy."

Susan got married in August 2003 to David Griffin, 51, but cannot have children due to the medication she has to take.

She said: "I live a normal, happy life.

"My husband is so supportive. He is my rock."

She added: "If someone gave me the chance to take away epilepsy I would say no because it is part of my life and has made me the person I am today."

FACTS ABOUT THE CONDITION MORE than 456,000 people in the UK have epilepsy.

Epilepsy is more than three times as common as Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Cerebral Palsy.

More than 75 cases are diagnosed each day.

Epilepsy can develop at any age.

It is diagnosed most often before the age of 20 and after the age of 60.

After a patient is diagnosed with epilepsy they begin taking anti-epileptic medication.

This treatment controls seizures in around 52 per cent of patients.

There are approximately 1,000 epilepsy-related deaths each year.

The condition claims more lives in England and Wales each year than AIDS and cot death combined.

Febrile seizures should always be investigated!

Febrile seizures are very rarely associated with epilepsy or other seizure disorder.
Febrile seizures are convulsions (fits) associated with fever.

They typically occur between the ages of six months and five years

The seizures usually last less than five minutes and seldom longer than 15 minutes.

They are the most common form of seizure in childhood.

Although febrile seizures are not a problem, the child must be carefully examined as there may be a serious disease that caused the fever.

What are febrile seizures?

Having excluded other serious causes of a fever and seizure, particularly meningitis, then a febrile seizure may be diagnosed if it is a generalised (whole body involved) convulsion associated with fever occurring in a child between the ages of six months and five years. Occasionally the seizure may be confined to just one side of the body. The accepted duration is from a few seconds up to a maximum of 15 minutes - but most last less than five minutes. After the seizure the child may be a bit drowsy, but there should not be any other abnormality such as weakness. They are usually self-limiting and do not require any anti-epileptic drugs.

Febrile seizures are very rarely associated with epilepsy or other seizure disorder. They are the most common cause of seizures during childhood and occur in 2-5% of normal children.

Factors suggesting an associated epilepsy include multiple recurrent seizures, prolonged seizures (>15 minutes), one-sided seizures and any abnormality on examination of the nervous system.
What causes febrile seizures?The cause is unknown. Any illness causing a significant fever may be associated with febrile seizures. The seizures appear to be triggered by a rapid rise in the temperature rather than by a sustained high fever. The seizure is often the first indication that the child is ill which makes prevention difficult.

Who gets febrile seizures and who is at risk?

Any child between the age of six months and five years who gets a high fever {>380C in the axilla (armpit)} is at risk. The peak is about 18 months.

There is often a history that febrile seizures occurred in a parent or other sibling.

About half of the children who have had a febrile seizure are at risk for a recurrence, but very few children will have multiple recurrent febrile seizures.

What are the symptoms and signs of a febrile seizure?

By its very nature, the seizure is often all over before the parents can even react. The child may have appeared unwell earlier in the day or the seizure may suddenly occur. Most children with a febrile seizure will have a temperature of >380C.

The seizure may present as just twitching of the arms and legs through to a full-blown generalised convulsion. Usually both sides of the body are involved, but occasionally only one side or one limb may be affected.

How is a diagnosis of febrile seizure made?

The diagnosis of febrile seizure is mainly one of exclusion. If the child has had a previous febrile seizure then it may be easier to make the diagnosis.

By the time the child reaches the health facility the seizure has stopped and quite often the temperature has fallen.

The child is examined to find the cause of the fever and to rule out a serious illness. Because of the concern regarding meningitis, many institutions will perform a lumbar puncture when a child first presents under these circumstances.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is not a routine investigation and would only be considered if the seizure was in any way atypical e.g. longer than 15 minutes or if there were recurrent seizures.
Can febrile seizures be prevented?

Often little can be done to prevent a febrile seizure because it usually occurs at the onset of the illness and may be the first sign that the child is ill.

Generally, the temperature should be kept as close to normal as possible in any ill child. Non-specific measures are to remove excess clothes and bedding and sponging down with tepid (not cold) water. Paracetamol can be given to reduce the fever.

How are febrile seizures treated?

A true febrile seizure is self-limiting and does not require specific management.

The basic principles of handling any child having a seizure is to ensure that the child cannot be hurt i.e. fall off the bed. The child should be gently rolled over onto their side and under no circumstances should one attempt to restrain or force open the child’s mouth.

The child should be examined for the cause of the fever and the appropriate management instituted, together with e.g. paracetamol to reduce the fever.

Anti-epileptics are not routinely used and are only prescribed when a child has many recurrent seizures and after further investigation.

When to call the doctor

Any child who has a seizure and who has not been formally diagnosed as having epilepsy or other seizure disorder must be seen by a doctor or health care worker to identify the cause.

The fever and convulsion may be associated with a serious illness such as meningitis.

Man drown in pool...it may be related to seizures!

A 40-year-old man died Thursday night after a neighbor found him near the bottom of a backyard pool, according to Gilbert Police.Witnesses said the man, whose name was not released, was cleaning his pool in the 1400 block of East Oxford Lane shortly before the incident, police said.

He was transported to Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn where he was pronounced dead.Police said the man had a history of seizures and may have suffered one before falling into the pool.

Mother searching for 71 years old son with history of seizures!

William Rochelle woke up on the morning of July 9 and walked out of his mother's house. He has been missing ever since.

Rochelle had lived with his mother Lucy Rochelle his entire life. He has seizures and medical conditions that make it hard for him to live alone.

Rochelle, who was 71 when he disappeared, left home without his wallet and watch, police say. He didn't take the new black suit he bought for church.

The Raleigh Police Department put out a missing persons alert when he was reported missing and searched the neighborhood more than once, spokesman Jim Sughrue said Saturday. Police called in a K9 unit and officers went door-to-door.

They still have no leads.

Rochelle's family initially hoped he had gone for a walk. Once he walked to a relative's house in Morrisville without telling anyone.

Sughrue said it's possible Rochelle caught a ride with someone and ended up in a different city.
"We simply do not know," he said.

Lucy Rochelle, 89, recently distributed fliers and newspaper articles at area businesses, the police station and a hospital. She hopes someone will recognize her son's photograph and call police.
"Lord, I just don't know what to do," she said. "I miss everything about him."

Inmates suffer from seizures due to possible overdose

Four female inmates hospitalized; drug overdose suspected

Four prisoners at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women were taken to University Hospital Wednesday night after going into seizures.

A toxicology report on one of the prisoners turned up a banned substance, which led officials to believe the inmates had overdosed on a drug, said Pewee Valley Fire Chief Bob Hamilton.
All of the affected inmates were from the same section of the same building at the prison, he said.
About 6:30 p.m., a correctional officer in one of the prison's living units told a supervisor that an inmate appeared to be having a seizure, according to a statement from the prison.

Shortly after 7 p.m., three more inmates "appeared to be having seizure-like activity," the statement said.

Pewee Valley firefighters were summoned to decontaminate the area, but reports of a chemical leak turned out to be false, he said.

Firefighters were sent into the prison wearing full gear and air packs. They removed the clothes of three female prisoners, then washed them down with soap and water, Hamilton said.

Only one of the three looked to be having seizures, but "you could tell all of them were sick," Hamilton said.

The prison was routinely spraying for weeds and bugs this week and it was initially thought that these chemicals had poisoned the inmates, Hamilton said. Preliminary medical tests ruled out any type of chemical exposure or contamination, according to prison officials. The institution returned to normal operations last night, and an investigation is under way.

The prison, located on 270 acres in Shelby County close to Pewee Valley, houses over 700 felons, according to its Web site.

Toddler has been dealing with a lot, along with seizures!

Mary Hable is a happy little girl about to turn four. Six months ago she cleared one of childhoods' major hurdles when she learned to walk. Most children walk earlier, but her parents could not be prouder or her big accomplishment.You see walking is just one hurdle of the many that Mary has already cleared."Mary has Tuberous Sclerosis Complex which is a genetic disorder that causes tubers and tumors to grow on the major organ groups.

"As a newborn, the tubers on Mary's brain began causing seizures. Not knowing what they were the Hables photographed one of the episodes.Her dad, Jim Hable, remembers those early days well, "We noticed that she was having a strange look on her face and her hand started coming up . We brought her to Childrens' the next day she was diagnosed.

"What does the diagnosis of "TS" mean for Mary? No one can really say because TS manifests itself in so many different ways. Jim says the disease is a great unknown, "Mary's seizures could stop tomorrow and a year and a half from now they could start again or she could have kidney failure or she could be a young woman and have a lung collapse or she could have major skin problems. You just don't know.?"

Despite two brain surgeries Mary still seizes about five times a day. For now, that means she learns things like walking, more slowly because her brain is just so tired.But the Hables continue to have hope and set goals."It would just be the greatest gift if she could talk in sentences and we would able to have a conversation with her," said her mother, Eileen, who added, "I've just really learned to just cherish every little thing she does and not take anything for granted."

Brain surgery seems promising in dealing with intractable seizures!

Sadly, none of the treatments for epilepsy—anti-seizure medications, a procedure called vagus nerve stimulation, a special diet —could quell the electrical storms in the young boy’s brain. Caused by a rare genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis, the seizures began when he was only 2 months old. By the time he was 5, he was having more than 10 a day. The seizures left him with the developmental capabilities of a 1-year-old child.

Today the boy rarely experiences seizures and his development has improved dramatically thanks to a bold three-stage brain operation being performed at NYU Medical Center by pediatric neurosurgeon Howard Weiner, M.D., Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine.

This child’s case study is part of a report in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics that describes 25 children with tuberous sclerosis who have been operated on by Dr. Weiner over the last six years. It is the largest report of epilepsy surgery in young children with the disease by a single surgeon in the medical literature.

The youngest child was 7 months old, and the oldest 17. They initially were evaluated extensively by a team of physicians that included Dr. Weiner and Orrin Devinsky, M.D., Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry and Director of NYU’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. The evaluation included an overnight stay in a special inpatient pediatric epilepsy unit at NYU’s Tisch Hospital, equipped with 24-hour electroencephalography (EEG) and video monitoring to correlate the children’s behavior with unusual brain activity.

After the evaluation revealed that seizures were affecting many areas of their brains, the team determined that the multi-stage operation would be necessary. Nearly all of the children underwent three separate brain operations over a 2-1/2 week period. Some of the operations lasted as long as nine hours. During the entire period the children remained in Tisch Hospital, where their parents could sleep next to them.

Two or more years after the operations, 17 of the 25 children were free of seizures or had only mild non-disabling attacks. Six children still experienced more severe non-disabling seizures but the number of such seizures was reduced by more than 90 percent. In two children the number was reduced by 50 percent to 90 percent. Despite the risks of brain surgery, Dr. Weiner and his colleagues report that the multiple surgeries did not cause serious infections or permanent damage to the brain.

“At some centers multiple-stage surgery would be considered aggressive, but we have established that this type of surgery is safe,” says Dr. Weiner. “Certainly this type of surgery should only be reserved for the toughest cases—children with tuberous sclerosis who are having uncontrolled seizures in association with developmental delay or even regression.”

Tuberous sclerosis produces tubers on many organs in the body, including the skin, kidneys, lungs, and eyes. In the brain, the hard calcified growths cause seizures. Mental retardation, autism, and other developmental problems can occur in as many as two-thirds of individuals with the disease, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Children with tuberous sclerosis typically have more than two tubers but some may have up to 20 in their brain, says Dr. Weiner.

Many children with the disease aren’t usually considered candidates for brain surgery because it is difficult to identify which tubers are causing seizures using electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp. The seizures in these children are spreading so quickly that by the time the electrodes pick up the abnormal nerve firings, it is no longer possible to determine where they originated. Other noninvasive imaging techniques cannot accurately pinpoint where seizures begin.

To overcome this problem, neurosurgeons place electrodes directly on the brain itself, which requires removing a portion of the bony cranium and cutting through the dura mater, the tough fibrous tissue covering the brain. The implanted grid of electrodes, attached to an EEG machine, is used to continuously monitor seizure activity over several days, providing a map for the surgeon to the location where the seizures arise. In the second operation, the surgeon removes the seizure-causing tissue in the brain.

Dr. Weiner takes the operation one step further. He places another set of electrodes in the brain after the second operation in order to locate any other areas that may be causing seizures. So children are again monitored with a grid of electrodes over a period of days, and then undergo a third operation to remove any tissue that still may be causing seizures.

Despite the promising results so far, Dr. Weiner says that it hasn’t yet been demonstrated that there is a “direct correlation between freedom from seizures and developmental normalcy.” However, he adds, “it is important to treat children as early as possible because persistent seizures are associated with a host of serious learning and developmental problems.”

The report in the journal Pediatrics is entitled “Epilepsy Surgery in Young Children with Tuberous Sclerosis: Results of a Novel Approach.” The authors are Dr. Weiner, Dr. Devinsky, Chad Carlson, M.D., Emily Ridgway, M.D., Charles M. Zaroff, Ph.D., Daniel Miles, M.D., and Josiane LaJoie, M.D.

Child went from 500 seizures in 10 weeks to none for a year!

During a 10-week period last year, one of the nearly 500 epileptic seizures seven-year-old Brianne Dean had to endure was so violent a 200-lb. firefighter had to hold her down while paramedics attached an IV.

Now, the spunky Calgary girl has been seizure-free for nearly a year, is back in school and taking karate classes, thanks to the superb care available at the Alberta Children's Hospital, says her grateful mom Luann.

"There's no way we can say 'Thank you' enough," the 32-year-old mom said yesterday after the launch of the hospital's annual Miracle Month of May fundraising campaign.

The Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation hopes funds raised through various local businesses and banks this month will help complete the Healing Gardens in the new ACH, scheduled to open this September, and pay for a $4-million magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner.

Toddler dies from seizures caused by head trauma!

An eastern Missouri woman was charged Monday with second-degree murder in the death of her boyfriend's 2-year-old daughter.

Codi Aston died in February 2005. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said Melissa Minehart, 32, was watching Codi when the child suffered trauma injuries that led to seizures. Codi died a day later.

Medical staff at a hospital alerted police and child-welfare authorities after determining the seizures had been caused by trauma, STLtoday.com, the Web site for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reported Monday.

Minehart was dating Brian Aston, Codi's father, at the time. Brian Aston and Pamela Minehart, Melissa Minehart's mother, have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child.