There are a huge number of diseases in the world, some of them have been known to medicine for many centuries, such as epilepsy or, as doctors call it, epilepsy. Scientists have been interested in this disease for a long time, they are working on creating a cure for it, but so far their efforts have not been crowned with success. But what is this disease, who is at risk?
Epilepsy: what is this disease
Epileptic disease is called epilepsy - a chronic form of the disease, which manifests itself in the form of convulsions and seizures, recurring regularly and accompanied by loss of consciousness and personality changes. This pathology is a reason to give a person a disability.
This disease has been known for a long time, in many medical treatises among Egyptian priests, Tibetan healers, Arab healers, one could find records that they observed the condition of patients with symptoms of epilepsy for a long time, but they cannot cure such patients managed. According to statistics, per 1000 people 5man sick.
Causes of disease
Epileptic disease is a very controversial pathology, especially if you look at what causes it. It is impossible to say for sure whether the disease is inherited, but in almost half of the patients, after questioning, relatives with such symptoms of the disease were found in the family.
Provoke the onset of pathology can be other reasons:
- traumatic brain injury;
- pathologies caused by parasites and viruses, including meningitis;
- failures in the blood circulation of the brain, and, as a result, oxygen starvation;
- brain tumors.
Alas, it is still impossible to pinpoint the exact causes of convulsions in a particular patient. Each person who has this diagnosis (epilepsy disease) has different symptoms. In one patient, the attack may be very pronounced and he needs help, while in others it may go unnoticed. But how to recognize an attack, what signs and symptoms should prompt first aid?
Signs of epilepsy
Seizures can be identified by several types:
- Partial or focal seizures. They manifest themselves in the form of failures in sensory and motor functions, and this confirms that the focus of the pathology is in the brain. An attack begins most often with a twitching of one of the parts of the body: the legs, arms or corner of the mouth, and in just a few seconds this condition can spread throughout the body, and the person losesconsciousness.
- Complex partial seizures. They also begin suddenly, but patients lose consciousness and contact with the outside world, do not control themselves and come to their senses for a very long time, without even realizing immediately what happened to them. They may have hallucinations, an anxiety state, they may fantasize about something that is not really there. But not all patients have very severe symptoms, the attack may be mild, and you can notice it by slurred speech or incorrect swallowing.
- Tonic-clonic seizures. They are very strong, affecting the cerebral cortex. Epilepsy in the form of this kind of attack begins with the fact that a person seems to freeze with his mouth open, his eyes and stands like an idol. Then a sharp contraction of the respiratory muscles begins, the jaws are sharply compressed, and at the same time the tongue is bitten, the patient does not control urination. This is how tonic seizures appear, they last only 20 seconds, and then they are replaced by clonic ones, and convulsions begin throughout the body. But they last only a couple of minutes, and then the patient falls into a dream and, waking up, does not remember anything, only sometimes a bitten tongue can tell that there was an attack.
- Absence is a small seizure that lasts only a few seconds, it is not immediately possible to determine it, as the patient may notice twitching in only some parts of the body.
Seizures occur in every patient, but what exactly they will be, it will not be possible to predict in advance.
Who can be threatenedepilepsy
It is impossible to say that epilepsy occurs in people who lead an unhe althy lifestyle or do not take care of their he alth. This disease is often found in someone you can’t even think of, for example, Hillary Clinton was struck by epilepsy. Her seizures were of various forms. Many doctors looked for a medicine that would help her get rid of the pathology, but they only managed to slightly reduce the number of attacks and their intensity.
People with different living standards and of any age are at risk:
- patients whose brain is affected by various infections or vascular pathologies;
- people with abnormal brain development;
- if there were patients with this diagnosis in the family;
- patients whose activities are associated with frequent brain injuries;
- patients over 60, as they have weakened immunity and problems with cerebral vessels;
- Children under 12 years old, because they often fall, injuring their heads, are susceptible to infectious diseases such as measles or chickenpox.
Epilepsy in children
Very often, children after infectious diseases or serious injuries frighten their parents with their attacks. If they were single, then this is not a diagnosis yet, but when 3-4 attacks were noticed with a certain frequency, then in this case you need to sound the alarm and urgently consult a doctor to confirm the diagnosis (epilepsy disease) or refute it.
Children's epilepsy is very different fromadult.
In newborns, tonic seizures occur due to the predominant functioning of certain parts of the brain. But do not immediately sound the alarm, because they can be very easily confused with motor activity.
Seizures in children under 5 years of age are manifested in the form of involuntary pressing of the arms to the chest, a sharp straightening of the legs and tilting the body forward. It has been noticed that seizures often occur in the morning after waking up and last only a couple of seconds. By the age of 6, seizures may stop or develop into a more serious form.
At 7-15 years old, clonic seizures most often occur in children. They lose consciousness, they are tormented by nightmares, frequent headaches, short-term loss of speech. But you should not make a diagnosis yourself, you must definitely undergo an examination and accurately determine whether the child has epilepsy or another disease.
Diagnosis of epilepsy
A patient is diagnosed only if 3-4 attacks have been noticed, in addition, it is necessary to exclude the presence of other pathologies that can cause such a condition.
Most often, adolescents and the elderly are susceptible to epilepsy. Middle-aged people are smaller, but they also have seizures. If you look closely, they are most often caused by strokes or head injuries.
To make an accurate diagnosis, a full examination is recommended:
- laboratory;
- MRI of the brain;
- CT headbrain;
- ECHO and other types of diagnostics that the doctor will prescribe.
Only after passing all the tests, the doctor can make an accurate diagnosis and prescribe drugs that will help ease the attacks and make them less frequent.
Epilepsy treatment
The beginning of treatment for a patient diagnosed with epilepsy disease begins with taking medications. The treatment is long, the first course may take up to two years, and after that you will need to take medication regularly. Most often, complex treatment consists of taking such medicines:
- Anticonvulsants - Depacon, Depaken or Depakot.
- Barbiturates - "Phenobarbital", "Primidon", these drugs are recommended for patients with tonic-clonic seizures, but these are most often taken for children - "Ethosuximide", "Metsuximide".
- Clonazepam is recommended for myoclonic and atonic seizures.
- Lamotrigine, Gabapentin – recommended for children aged 2 years and older and adults as an adjunct to primary therapy for partial seizures.
- Pregabalin is an adjunctive treatment for the onset of partial seizures in adults with epilepsy.
- Zonisamide is recommended as part of complex therapy for adults with partial seizures.
In general, all patients tolerate treatment well and can take the same drugs for about 5-10 years. But it is possible to combine therapy withtraditional medicine recipes.
Epilepsy: treatment with folk methods
There are many folk recipes that are effective for patients diagnosed with epilepsy. Treatment with folk remedies should be long-term, only in this case serious changes can be noticed. There are many complex recipes for decoctions, where several types of herbs are present, and there are also simple, but no less effective ones. So, it is recommended to use such compositions daily, and the attacks will become rare and non-intense:
- Drink 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed onion juice before each meal.
- Three times a day you need to drink valerian tincture, the number of drops for children corresponds to age, and for adults 30-40 drops.
- Each morning on an empty stomach, you need to eat an apricot kernel, their amount should correspond to the age of the patient. The course of admission is three months, after - a month break, and repeat the course.
But in addition to treatment with folk methods, many also resort to the help of the church. If you talk to the priest, he will tell you that there is a prayer for epilepsy, with epilepsy it is read twice a day. Believers believe that only God can help them cure such an ailment.
Conspiracies for epilepsy
Conspiracies from epilepsy are also often used in the treatment of people, because relatives try to resort to any of the methods to only help alleviate suffering:
- You need to take a crumb of bread, make a ball out of it and roll it over the chest, arms and legs of a patient with epilepsy,after that, take this ball to the crossroads and say: "Holy well-wisher, accept bread and s alt, and forgive the servant of God (name)."
- Also using the crumb of bread, and rolling it all over the body of the patient, pronounce these words: "I roll out, pronounce and transverse, enviable and joyful, from a violent head, from a ruddy face, from bones, from brains, from a liver, from lungs, from a zealous heart, from white hands, from quick feet with pure words."
Despite the fact that the most effective medicine that could cope with epilepsy does not exist, but there are a lot of drugs that can alleviate the patient's condition, improve his quality of life, reduce the frequency of seizures. Do not self-medicate and self-diagnose. Only a specialist has the right to do this.
