𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 & 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

13. Epilepsy

"A disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing seizures. Epilepsy may occur as a result of a genetic disorder or an acquired brain injury, such as a trauma or stroke."

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder in which brain activity can become abnormal which in turn, causes seizures or unusual behavior, sensations, and at times, loss of awareness.

Before I wrote this chapter, I had heard about epilepsy before but nothing specific. But when Cameron Boyce passed away from the disorder, I decided that I would write about it in this book in a way to honor his memory.

Epilepsy can be developed at any age - it's not like other disorders that can be specific to childhood or onset adulthood. It affects all age groups, genders, and races equally.

Symptoms of the disorder though, is most widely categorized as strictly seizures. Some signs of it include temporary confusion, blank stares, uncontrollable movements of the arms and legs, loss of consciousness or awareness, as well as more psychic symptoms such as anxiety, fear or a feeling of deja vu.

For the most part, the symptoms depend on the severity of the seizure. But in most cases, a person who has these seizures tends to have the same type each time therefore having the same symptoms with each episode.

Seizures fall into two categories which are : focal seizures without loss of consciousness and focal seizures with impaired awareness.

Focal seizures without loss of consciousness as the name suggest do not cause unconsciousness but instead may alter emotions or the senses (ie. look, smell, taste, feel, sound). They may also result in involuntary jerking of the arms or legs as well as spontaneous symptoms such as tingling or dizziness.

Focal seizures with impaired awareness involve a loss of consciousness as well as awareness of their surroundings. During a seizure such as this, the person may stare into space or perform repetitive movements like chewing, swallowing or walking in circles.

Although there are two categories, there are actually several kind of seizures though including absence, tonic, atonic, clonic, myoclonic, and tonic-clonic.

All of those names are super confusing, I know but I'll break it down further.

Absence seizures are the kind that usually occur in young children and cause blank staring or subtle body movements such as lip smacking.

Tonic seizures cause stiffening of the muscles in the back, arms, and legs and can cause those who have them to fall.

Atonic seizures not unlike tonic seizures above, also cause a loss of muscle control which in turn can cause unbalance.

Clonic seizures are associated with repeated jerking of muscle movement. They primarily affect the neck, face and arms.

Myoclonic seizures are sudden jerking or twitching of the arms and legs.

And lastly, tonic-clonic seizures are the most dramatic and dangerous type of epileptic seizures because they can cause the loss of consciousness, body stiffening or shaking and at times loss of bladder control or even biting your tongue. In fact, these individuals suffer the highest risk.

But the way seizures affect people differ - some remember and have complete awareness as to what's going on, with no ability to move or do anything and there are others who remember nothing of the episode whether from loss of awareness or even because they were asleep at the time.

The most dangerous part of epilepsy though is something that isn't given near as much awareness as it should be - SUDEP.

SUDEP is the sudden, unexpected death of someone with epilepsy who was an otherwise healthy individual. In these cases, no other cause of death can be found. Each year 1 in 1,000 people die of SUDEP and is the leading cause of death for those who have this disorder.

In fact, SUDEP was the cause of Cameron Boyce's death as well...

I wish I could write that something has been found - a cure or some kind of treatment that can lessen the risk of SUDEP but at this time, nothing has been discovered to help.

Many forms of epilepsy though do require life-long treatment to control the seizures. There have been cases where seizures have thankfully went away over a period of time, although that hasn't been the case for those with more severe symptoms.

Studies are still being done all the time though and there is even an organization that was started last year, The Cameron Boyce Foundation, that was created in his honor. With this organization, they aim to find a cure to epilepsy to help those who suffer. It's an amazing foundation and charity and I implore everyone to check it out - more awareness needs to be brought to this disorder.

I hope that I was able to do this disorder some justice and bring up some unknown facts about it. Up next, I'll be discussing anemia and its affects. I hope y'all will check it out ^_^