Epilepsy: it's all in the mind

I thought it might be interesting to write down a bunch of random facts about epilepsy as I realised that people don't know much about it and feel uncomfortable even talking about it. Don't worry, I'm here to help.

At this end of this (if you get that far), you won't be much the wiser, but you'll know a bit (if you're not even the slightest bit interested in reading this, just have a look at the anecdote at the end, it made me laugh...). Maybe you'll want to go further and learn more, but even if you don't, you'll be able to fire off a few facts and sound knowledgeable...I find that, in life, a few facts, well-placed, can get you a long way. Anyway, here is a highly non-scientific list of unordered titbits:

• Normally, electrical signals pass between the neurons in your brain; they control your thoughts and movements - everything you know or do, that's all. In normal situations, this is a fairly ordered process. Stop signals are respected (unlike in France) etc. Epilepsy is a temporary malfunction of this process and is often described as a "storm" of electrical signals firing off abnormally.
  
• The part of the brain where this occurs determines the type of epilepsy you have: some are generalised (the whole brain is effected), some are localised (just a bit of the brain -always the same - is involved). Mine are localised in the temporal lobe (not very important, just heavily involved in memory, speech and vision, gulp!) and are called "complex partial seizures". Not surprisingly therefore, my seizures often result in changes to my speech and rekindle strange, long-forgotten memories...
  
• A seizure can last between a couple of seconds or several hours. Even a 1 second seizure is a pain. I've been in the middle of a presentation to customers, had a seizure, which basically had the effect of making me lose my train of thought and my audience feel uncomfortable...anyway, where was I?
  
• Between 0.5% and 1% of the population suffer from epilepsy; it's difficult to know exactly how many - some simply don't realise and others don't admit to it because of the stigma attached to it or the associated annoyances (loss of driving licence, difficulty in finding jobs in some sectors...). You probably know somebody who has epilepsy (especially if you know me).
• There are innumerable triggers for epilepsy: some common ones are:
• Stress (definitely one of my triggers). On an otherwise excellent site about epilepsy, I read the following useful advice about how to reduce stress-related seizures: "try to avoid stressful situations". Amusing, but actually, using it as a kind of mantra might actually make sense.
• Alcohol abuse (although I recently read that it is stopping drinking that can trigger the seizures, at least that's the way I understood it - don't contradict me, you don't want me getting stressed),
  
• Sleep deprivation ("stop writing this blog entry and go to bed")
• Not taking your medication. Duh.
  
• Some other stuff.
  
• All sorts of things have been been attributed to epilepsy and have been the focus of serious scientific study:
• Enhanced creativity (although there are some exceptions - take this blog...)
• Extreme religious belief. I guess that part of my brain didn't get affected - hallelujah! D'oh! Could it be that religious belief is just a bunch of electrical signals fired off in the wrong order in a particular bit of your brain? Richard Dawkins would have something to say about that...
  

OK, so that's enough random snippets. Epilepsy is not really a laughing matter, but this made me chortle:

A friend of mine told me that his company had sent a memo to all staff looking for a replacement phrase for "brainstorming" because they thought that this word might be offensive to people with epilepsy. They came up with "thought-shower". Brilliant - a thought-shower to replace the word brainstorm!