Epilepsy and Its Risk Factors

Watching a movie is usually a fun activity for people that they do on weekends with friends, however, not everyone has the luxury of watching any movie they want. Some have to be careful because if they’re not they can have a seizure while watching. If the person has epilepsy which is a neurological disorder that causes problems with sensory disturbance. This basically means that a person with epilepsy has damaged or unhealthy neurotransmitters in their brain that send weird or unusual messages. And if enough neurotransmitters start sending out theses unusual messages then it can cause a seizure. A seizure can make the movie-going experience or just day to day life dangerous. It's dangerous because a person with epilepsy can have a seizure caused by a wide variety of things. Not getting enough sleep to what music you listen to epilepsy can cause a seizure. But you have to ask how does one get epilepsy?

Epilepsy can be acquired in a lot of ways, the most major are “low oxygen level in infants, head trauma that took place at birth or accidents during childhood or adult age, tumors in the brain, genetic disorders that causes brain injury like sclerosis, Encephalitis, or meningitis, and other brain infections, brain stroke, abnormal blood sugar or sodium levels, to high or to low levels of neurotransmitters like Acetylcholine”, however even with all the ways just listed more than half of the cases in children and adults have no definite cause. It's even possible to be born with epilepsy if given the wrong genes or by how genes work in the brain. You can get epilepsy at any time in your life which is why it's important to know the causes. However, most cases of epilepsy are found in children or more elderly individuals with the children usually getting it in the first year after birth. Unfortunately for these victims, epilepsy cannot be cured but there are some treatments.

Most people with epilepsy can manage or control it through various treatments and procedures. The treatments help these people with epilepsy but keep in mind they don't get rid of all the effects of the disorder. Medication which is the most common form of treatment for epilepsy does not cure the disease it just manages the seizures. But the medication is usually only effective if taken on a routine basis and taken how prescribed. Other than drugs other forms of treatments include a nerve stimulator, a ketogenic diet, and even brain surgery. In some cases, brain surgery can stop seizures altogether because you are removing the part of the brain that starts the seizures which is usually the temporal lobe. However, research continues to go into treatments for epilepsy, “One treatment that may be available in the future is deep brain stimulation. It’s a procedure in which electrodes are implanted into your brain. Then a generator is implanted in your chest. The generator sends electrical impulses to the brain to help decrease seizures.” So new techniques and ways of dealing with the disorder are appearing fast and hopefully one day a reliable cure will appear. Until then the best you can do against epilepsy is know how to prevent it.

Epilepsy is really easy to avoid and you might already be doing some of the things needed to avoid it now without even realizing it. There are 5 ways of preventing this disorder and each one is very important to avoid epilepsy. They are taking steps to avoid head injury, eat healthily and exercise, get vaccinated, wash your hands and prepare your food properly, and to have a healthy pregnancy. Most of these things people do already but they are important. You need to lower your chances of getting diseases and infections that can affect your brain and in turn, have a chance of causing epilepsy. But most importantly you need to take care of your child before and after birth because “Some problems during pregnancy and childbirth may lead to epilepsy in the child. Follow a prenatal care plan with your doctor to keep you and your baby healthy.” Children especially newborns have a high chance of getting epilepsy which is why you need to do everything to make sure your baby comes out healthy.

Epilepsy is a disease nobody should have to live with as it can cause horrendous seizures and be a nuisance to your everyday life. So if you do your own research and use what was stated here you should be on a good path to knowing everything you need to know about epilepsy and how to treat and avoid it. And if you or a loved one have epilepsy remember that you are not alone and there are ways on controlling an managing your disorder.