What Is Epilepsy?
Epilepsy is a stipulate of the nervous system that affects 2.5 million Americans. More than 180,000 people are diagnosed notwithstanding epilepsy every year.
It can be scary watching somebody gain an epileptic seizure. The personage may lose consciousness or seem unaware of what’s going on, make involuntary motions (movements the personage has no control over, such as jerking or thrashing one or more parts of the body), or undergo unusual feelings or sensations (such as unexplained fear). After a seizure, he or she may feel tired, unsubstantial, or confused.
People have seizures when the electrical striking in the brain misfire. The brain’s normal electrical activity is disrupted by these overactive electrical discharges, causing a temporary communication problem amid nerve cells.
Just because somebody has a seizure does not necessarily mean that personage has epilepsy, though. Seizures can be triggered in anyone under certain conditions, such as life-threatening dehydration or high temperature. But when a personage experiences repeated seizures for no obvious reason, that personage is said to have epilepsy.
Many people develop epilepsy as children or teens. Others develop it later in life. For rather people notwithstanding epilepsy (particularly kids), the seizures eventually become less frequent or vanish altogether.
What Causes Epilepsy?
This is a tricky question with no blurred-cut answer. seldom general practitioner can’t pinpoint exactly what causes epilepsy in a fastidious appearance. But scientists do know that some things can make a appearance again likely to develop epilepsy, including:
a brain injury, such as from a car crash or bike accident; an infection or illness very affected the developing brain of a fetus during pregnancy; sufficiency of oxygen to an infant’s brain during childbirth; meningitis, encephalitis, or any extra type of infection very affects the brain; brain tumors or strokes; poisoning, such as pursue or alcohol poisoning
Epilepsy is not infectious (you can’t catch it from somebody who has it). It’s not passed down absolutely race (inherited) in the same way that blue eyes or brown hair are. But somebody who has a close relative notwithstanding epilepsy has a slightly higher risk for it than somebody notwithstanding no family history of usurpation.
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Understanding Seizures
Seizures may peer frightening, but they’re not painful. They affect different multitude in different ways. Epileptic seizures fall into two principal nomination: partial and generalized.
Partial usurpation depart in one part of the brain. The electrical disturbances may then move to some parts of the brain or they may stay in one space until the usurpation is over.
A person deportment a partial seizure may lose consciousness. There may be twitching of a finger or several plunder, a hand or arm, or a leg or foot. Certain facial muscles might twitch. address might serve slurred, unclear, or unusual during the seizure. The person’s vision might be affected temporarily. He or she might feel tingling throughout one support of the host. It all depends on where in the brain the abnormal electrical activity is taking place.
Generalized seizures involve electrical disturbances that befall all higher the brain at the same time-out. The appearance may appear to be daydreaming, may stare off into space, or may pronounce out. The muscles may stiffen and the appearance might make sudden jerking motions, such as flinging the warfare outward. He or she may suddenly go limp and slump down or fall higher.
Most convulsion distinct only a few seconds or minutes. following a capture is over, the appearance might feel sleepy or confused for a few minutes or even an hour or more. People who’ve had convulsion may not recollect the capture or what happened immediately before the event. They may be alert and prepare to resume whatever they were doing before the capture happened. It diversify from appearance to appearance.
Certain things can sometimes trigger seizures in people with epilepsy. They involve:
flashing or bright lights; a lack of sleep; stress; overstimulation; fever; certain medications; hyperventilation (breathing too fast or too deeply);