It’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Care Education Month.

At one time Alzheimer’s disease was a disease considered with unknown etiology (or cause).  Today it is considered different in the eyes of many in the medical profession.  By a Dr. Mercola a physician who founded Mercola.com (Mercola.com is now the world’s top natural health resource site, with over 1.5 million subscribers.) feels this about Alzheimer’s disease:    “The cause of the debilitating, and fatal, brain disease Alzheimer’s is conventionally said to be a mystery.”

While we know that certain diseases, like type 2 diabetes, are definitively connected to the foods you eat, Alzheimer’s is generally thought to strike without warning or reason.

That is, until recently.

Now, a growing body of research suggests there may be a powerful connection between the foods you eat and your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, via similar pathways that cause type 2 diabetes.  Some have even re-named Alzheimer’s as “type 3 diabetes.””

Can You Eat Your Way to Alzheimer’s?

In a recent animal study, researchers from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island were able to induce many of the characteristic brain changes seen with Alzheimer’s disease (disorientation, confusion, inability to learn and remember) by interfering with insulin signaling in their brains.

Know that faulty insulin (and leptin, another hormone) signaling is an underlying cause for insulin resistance, which, of course, typically leads to type 2 diabetes. However, while insulin is usually associated with its role in keeping your blood sugar levels in a healthy range, it also plays a role in brain signaling. When researchers disrupted the proper signaling of insulin in the brain, it resulted in dementia.

What does this have to do with your diet?  Let us go back to one of my articles on diabetes this week and how it impacts your diet.  It states “The foods we eat that contain starches, carbohydrates, calories are made up of sugar.  When food reaches our stomach in time digestion starts to take place where these foods are broken down in the stomach into individual or complex sugar molecules ( glucose being one of the most common and important ones).  The glucose then passes from our stomach into our bloodstream when it reaches the liver 60 to 80 % of the glucose gets stored in that organ turning glucose into inactive glucose that’s converted to glycogen.  The purpose for glycogen is when our glucose is low and our body needing energy we have this extra stored sugar, glycogen,  to rely on.  This is done by the liver which allows the sugar to be stored and released back into the bloodstream if we need it=energy,  since nothing is in our stomach at that time, in that case scenario).  When glucose=an active sugar, it is our energy for our cells and tissues and is a sugar ready to be utilized by the body where it is needed,  by many organs.  Think of a car for one moment, and what makes it run?  That would be gas/fuel for it to function.  The same principle with glucose in your bloodstream=fuel for the human body so we can function, for without it we wouldn’t survive.  That is the problem with a person that has diabetes.  They eat, they break the food down, the glucose gets in the blood but the glucose fuel can’t be used due to lack of or NO insulin at all.  Insulin allows glucose to pass into our cells and tissues to be used as energy/fuel for the body parts to work.  Glucose is used as the principle source of energy (It is used by the brain for energy, the muscles for both energy and some storage, liver for more glucose storage=that is where glucose is converted to glycogen, and even stored in fat tissue using it for triglyceride production).  Glucose does get sent to other organs for more storage, as well.  Insulin plays that vital role in allowing glucose to be distributed throughout the body.  Without insulin the glucose has nowhere to go.”

So how does this impact your brain thinking?

“This new focus on the Alzheimer’s/Diabetes/Insulin connection follows a growing recognition of insulin’s role in the brain. Until recently, the hormone was typecast as a regulator of blood sugar, giving the cue for muscles, liver and fat cells to extract sugar from the blood and either use it for energy or store it as fat. We now know that it is also a master multitasker: it helps neurons, particularly in the hippocampus and frontal lobe, take up glucose for energy, and it also regulates neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which are crucial for memory and learning.”  What is effected with Alzheimer’s disease? Your memory and learning,  So your diet plays a big role in Alzheimer’s disease.”                                                                                        

Over-consumption of sugars and grains is what ultimately causes your body to be incapable of “hearing” the proper signals from insulin and leptin, leaving you insulin resistant in both body and brain.  Alzheimer’s disease was tentatively dubbed “type 3 diabetes” in early 2005 when researchers learned that the pancreas is not the only organ that produces insulin. Your brain also produces insulin, and this brain insulin is necessary for the survival of your brain cells.

If You Have Diabetes, Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Increases Dramatically

Diabetes is linked to a 65 percent increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s, which may be due, in part, because insulin resistance and/or diabetes appear to accelerate the development of plaque in your brain, which is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. Separate research has found that impaired insulin response was associated with a 30 percent higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and overall dementia and cognitive risks were associated with high fasting serum insulin, insulin resistance, impaired insulin secretion and glucose intolerance.

A drop in insulin production in your brain may contribute to the degeneration of your brain cells, mainly by depriving them of glucose, and studies have found that people with lower levels of insulin and insulin receptors in their brain often have Alzheimer’s disease (people with type 2 diabetes often wind up with low levels of insulin in their brains as well). As explained in New Scientist, which highlighted this latest research:

What’s more, it encourages the process through which neurons change shape, make new connections and strengthen others. And it is important for the function and growth of blood vessels, which supply the brain with oxygen and glucose.

As a result, reducing the level of insulin in the brain can immediately impair cognition. Spatial memory, in particular, seems to suffer when you block insulin uptake in the hippocampus… Conversely, a boost of insulin seems to improve its functioning.

When people frequently gorge on fatty, sugary food, their insulin spikes repeatedly until it sticks at a high level. Muscle, liver and fat cells then stop responding to the hormone, meaning they don’t mop up glucose and fat in the blood. As a result, the pancreas desperately works overtime to make more insulin to control the glucose – and levels of the two molecules skyrocket.

The pancreas can’t keep up with the demand indefinitely, however, and as time passes people with type 2 diabetes often end up with abnormally low levels of insulin.”

“Diabetes is a condition that happens when your blood sugar (glucose) is too high. It develops when your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin or any at all, or when your body isn’t responding to the effects of insulin properly. Diabetes affects people of all ages. Most forms of diabetes are chronic (lifelong), and all forms are manageable with medications and/or lifestyle changes.”

Cleveland Clinic (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/7104-diabetes)

Diabetes is becoming more common in the United States.  From 1980 through 2011, the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes has than tripled (from 5.6 million to 20.9 million).

DIABETES: The Signs & Symptom and How to control the them:

The signs and symptoms of Diabetes 1 or 2 with hyperglycemia (HIGH GLUCOSE LEVELS):

THINK OF THE 3 P’s=

1.)Polyuria-When all of sudden you are voiding urine.  Poly ,meaning alot, uria, meaning urine,; so a lot of urinating due to your body trying to void out of the body excess glucose in your urine can be a symptom of diabetes. This is a common symptom that causes the next symptoms due to your voiding a lot of urine which causes your body to lose fluid, being water with alot of glucose in the urine, and in return you become very thirsty with hungry. This gives you:

2.)Polydipsia= very thirsty

3.)Polyphagia=very hungry

This should be a red light for a diabetic with these one or all 3 symptoms to finger stick or glucose test themselves.   See where your glucose level is at and if over 200 this is why you have one or all of the “P” symptoms (listed above).

Other s/s of Diabetes consist of:

– Tingling / Numbness in the hands and feet (diabetic neuropathy)

-Very tired and fatigued

-Weight Loss (more common to see in Diabetes 1; most of the time Type II DM is due to obesity and noncompliance of a diabetic )

-Blurred Vision.

-Sores or diabetic ulcers especially in the lower extremities that do not heal; and if not healed, this can cause in time a severe condition.

Complications that can come about due to DIABETES:

Dental Disease – Diabetes can lead to problems with teeth and gums, called gingivitis and periodontitis.

Heart Disease – People with diabetes have a higher risk for HTN, heart attack and stroke.

Eye Complications – People with diabetes have a higher risk of blindness and other vision problems.

Kidney Disease – Diabetes can damage the kidneys and may lead all the way up to kidney failure.

Nerve Damage (neuropathy) – Diabetes can cause damage to the nerves that run through the body.  Particularly neuropathy can occur leading to no feeling to other complications occuring (Example diabetic with neuropathy keeps stepping on sharp items not feeling them making a wound develop causing a sore not to heal that leads into a diabetic ulcer that doesn’t heel leading to a foot amputation or worse below or above knee amputation it leads to in time).

Foot Problems – Nerve damage, infections of the feet, and problems with blood flow to the feet can be caused by diabetes.

Skin Complications – Diabetes can cause skin problems, such as infections, sores, and itching. Skin problems are sometimes a first sign that someone has diabetes. Sores that cannot heal due to constant high glucose in the body can lead into a severe condition=AMPUTATION of the foot or leg.

**. (At least 15 % of all people with diabetes eventually have a foot ulcer, and 6 out of every 1000 people with Diabetes have an AMPUTATION. Possibly first surgery with bypassing the blood can resolve the problem 100% or like many only temporary. It is based on your other medical history with how brittle the diabetes and how compliant you are in taking care of yourself with diabetes.   This is why you see with some diabetics amputations of the lower extremities, hardly ever a upper amputation which is usually due to trauma or smoking.***

All these complications are effected by hyperglycemia and in playing a part in the blood circulation of our body. Ending line the person is getting bad oxygenated blood supply sent to the lower extremities when the glucose is poorly controlled over a long time. Based on the principle of gravity; what happens here is the heart pumps our blood throughout our body and when it gets difficult for the organ to do its job due to thick high glucose blood than it has to compensate at some point. Simply a narrowing to a blockage is occurring in that lower extremity and the reason for this is it’s the furthest area from the heart=FEET/LEGS.

This can be caused by just thick high glucose blood flowing throughout the body making it difficult for the heart to pump as effectively as opposed to someone that doesn’t have hyperglycemia which over time leads to further complications (listed above).

Diabetes with constant high glucose blood levels can leaded into poor circulation causes the feet and lower leg to first become cool to cold to changing colors of pale to cyanotic (purple) which takes over weeks to months to years, depending on the patient. Then the tissue gets necrotic (black=dead tissue) and an amputation has to be done to save the person or else this will get infected locally, at first, going into a systemic infection causing the person to go into septicemia and expire.

REFERENCES for Part 1, Part 2 & 3:

1.)  Center for Disease (CDC) – “National Diabetes Fact Sheet”

2.)  NYS Dept. of Health –Diabetes

3.)  Diabetic Neuropathy.org “All about diabetic neuropathy and nerve damage caused by Diabetes.”

4.)  NIDDK “National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

5.)  National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NIDC) – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.       “Preventing Diabetes Problems: What you need to know”

“Among the U.S. population overall, crude estimates for 2021 were:

• 38.4 million people of all ages—or 11.6% of the U.S. population—had diabetes.
• 38.1 million adults aged 18 years or older—or 14.7% of all U.S. adults—had diabetes (Table 1a; Table 1b).
• 8.7 million adults aged 18 years or older who met laboratory criteria for diabetes were not aware of or did not report having diabetes (undiagnosed diabetes, Table 1b). This number represents 3.4% of all U.S. adults (Table 1a) and 22.8% of all U.S. adults with diabetes.
• The percentage of adults with diabetes increased with age, reaching 29.2% among those aged 65 years or older (Table 1a).”

Center for Disease Control and Prevention – CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/index.html)

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a complex chronic disease involving disorders in carbohydrate, protein, and fat metabolism and the development of macro-vascular, micro-vascular, neurological complications that don’t occur over a few nights or weeks or months.  It is a metabolic disorder in where the pancreas organ ends up causing many disruptions in proper working of our body.  The pancreas is both an endocrine and exocrine gland.

The problem with diabetes is due to the endocrine part of the pancreas not working properly.  More than 1 million islet cells are located throughout this organ.  The three types of endocrine cells that the pancreas excretes into our blood stream are alpha, beta, and delta cells.  The alpha cells secrete glucagon (stored glucose), beta secrete insulin, and delta secrete gastrin and pancreatic somatostatin.

A person with DM has minimal or no beta cells secreted from the pancreas, which shows minimal or no insulin excreted in the person’s bloodstream.  Insulin is necessary for the transport of glucose, amino acids, potassium, and phosphate across the cell membrane getting these chemical elements into the cell.  When getting these elements into the cells it is like the cell eating a meal and the glucose, being one of the ingredients in the meal, is used for energy=fuel to our body; the glucose inside the cells gets carried to all our tissues in the body to allow the glucose to be utilized into all our tissues so they can do their functions (Ex. Getting glucose into the muscle tissue allows the muscles to have the energy to do the range of motion in letting us do our daily activities of living, like as simple as type or walk).  The problem with diabetes is the glucose doesn’t have the insulin being sent into the bloodstream by the pancreas to transfer the glucose across the cell membrane to be distributed as just discussed.  Instead what results is a high glucose levels in the blood stream outside the cells causing hyperglycemia.  Remember when a doctor has you go to the lab or even in his office getting blood drawn from your arm to check blood levels of electrolytes (like glucose, potassium, sodium) or even drug levels, its measuring only these elements outside the cell. We cannot measure the levels of these elements inside the cell or we would have to break the cell destroying it which makes no logic or help in diagnosing.

It should be apparent that when there is a deficit of insulin, as in DM, hyperglycemia with increased fat metabolism and decreased protein synthesis occur ( Our body being exposed to this type of environment over  years causes the development of many chronic conditions that would not have occurred if DM never took place in the body, all due to high glucose levels starting with not being properly displaced in the body as it should be normally since insulin loss didn’t allow the glucose to go into the cells but remained outside the cells.).

People with normal metabolism upon awaking and before breakfast are able to maintain blood glucose levels in the AM ranging from 60 to 110mg/dl.  After eating food the non-diabetic’s blood glucose may rise to 120-140 mg/dl after eating (postprandial), but these then rapidly return back to normal.  The reason for this happening is you eat food, it reaches the stomach, digestion takes place during digestion the stomach breakes down fats, carbohydrates, and sugars from compound sugars to simple sugars (fructose and glucose).  Than the sugars transfer from the stomach into the bloodstream causing an increase in sugar levels.  Now, your body uses the sugar it needs at that time throughout the entire body for energy and if still extra sugar left in the bloodstream that isn’t needed at that time to be utilized it now needs to go somewhere out of the bloodstream to allow the glucose blood level to get back between 60-110mg/dl.  That extra glucose first gets stored up in the liver 60-80%. How this happens is the extra glucose in the blood stream not needed now fills up the liver (like filling up your gas tank) but limits the amount it can take. When the glucose goes in the liver it goes from active sugar to inactive by getting converted from glucose to glycogen=inactive sugar now. Now when the liver can store no more then the extra glucose left in the bloodstream after all tissues utilized the digested sugar sent to the bloodstream after digestion and the next place for storage gets stored in our fat tissue=fat storage=weight increase. That is the logic behind eating small meals properly dispensed with protein/CHOs/sugars/fat every 6hrs. This limits the amount of food to digest down to prevent excess sugar in the bloodstream preventing hyperglycemia from occurring and most of your small meal if not all is utilized by our muscle tissues preventing both hyperglycemia and high fat distribution of the glucose to prevent weight increase, also.

Unfortunately this doesn’t take place with a diabetic since there is very little or no insulin being released by the pancreas and over time due to the high blood glucose blood levels (called hyperglycemia) problems arise in the body over years.   When diabetes occurs there is a resolution and you have the disease the rest of your life.  You need to control your glucose level through proper dieting for a diabetic with balancing exercise and rest. Exercise uses up your glucose also in the body. Increase activity the body needs energy the gas for the body is glucose, like gas in our auto vehicles in the tank.

TWO TYPES OF Diabetes Mellitus:

1.)Diabetes I

 2.) Diabetes ll

We have risk factors that can cause disease/illness; there are unmodified and modified risk factors.

With unmodified risk factors we have no control in them, which are 4 and these are:

1-Heredity 2-Sex 3-Age 4-Race.

Now modified risk factors which are factors we can control.  They are

1.)Weight 2.)Diet 3.)Health Habits (which play a big role in why many people get diabetes II)  5.)Physical Inactivity 6.)Hyperlipidemia and Hypertension

Stayed tune for part III tomorrow on more knowledge of this disease.

“There are two main types of seizures: generalized and focal seizures.

These types describe where a seizure starts in the brain and how it may affect a person.

Call 911 if a seizure (of any type) lasts more than 5 minutes or if the person does not wake up fully between seizures.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.cdc.gov/epilepsy/about/types-of-seizures.html)

Old Lists Below on Seizure Classification:

Most Updated List on Classifications of Seizures by the Epilepsy Foundation:

Types of seizures whether with a etiology or unknown:

I-Partial seizures (seizures beginning local)

1-simple partial seizures-(the person is conscious and not impaired).  With motor symptoms, autonomic symptoms and even psychic symptoms.

2.)-Complex partial seizures-(the person is with impairment of consciousness)

II-Generalized seizures-(bilaterally symmetrical and without local onset).

3.) Tonic clonic seizures – Grand Mal

See Above the most updated,being 2017, on classifications of seizures list by the Epilepsy Foundation.

Treatment:

1-Epilepsy is sometimes referred to as a long-term condition, as people often live with it for many years, or for life. Although generally epilepsy cannot be ‘cured’, for most people, seizures can be ‘controlled’ (stopped) so that epilepsy has little or no impact on their lives. So treatment is often about managing seizures in the long-term.

Most people with epilepsy take anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) to stop their seizures from happening. However, there are other treatment options for people whose seizures are not controlled by anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs).

2-The ketogenic diet is one treatment option for children with epilepsy whose seizures are not controlled with AEDs. The diet may help to reduce the number or severity of seizures and can often have positive effects on behaviour.

3-Vagus nerve stimulation therapy is a treatment for epilepsy that involves a stimulator (or ‘pulse generator’) which is connected, inside the body, to the left vagus nerve in the neck. The stimulator send regular, mild electrical stimulations through this nerve to help calm down the irregular electrical brain activity that leads to seizures.

There are several ways to treat epilepsy. How well each treatment works varies from one person to another. Vagus nerve stimulation therapy is a form of treatment for people with epilepsy whose seizures are not controlled with medication.

4-There are different kinds of epilepsy surgery. One kind of surgery involves removing a specific area of the brain which is thought to be causing the seizures. Another kind involves separating the part of the brain that is causing seizures from the rest of the brain.

Surgery may be possible for both adults and children, and might be considered if:

• you have tried several AEDs and none of them have stopped or significantly reduced your seizures; and
• a cause for your epilepsy can be found in a specific area of your brain, and this is an area where surgery is possible.

Whether you are suitable for surgery is something that you may like to talk about with your GP or neurologist. If you meet these criteria and are considered for surgery, you will need to have further tests before you can have the surgery.

If you are referred for surgery you will probably go to a specialist centre for tests. There are many different pre-surgical tests you might have before you can be given the go-ahead for surgery. This could include further MRI scans, an EEG (electroencephalogram) and video telemetry (an EEG while also being filmed). Other types of scans may also be done, which trace a chemical injected into the body. This can show detailed information about where seizures start in the brain.

Memory and psychological tests are also used to see how your memory and lifestyle might be affected after the surgery. These types of tests also help the doctors to see how you are likely to cope with the impact of having this type of surgery.

The tests will confirm whether:

• the surgeons can reach the epileptogenic lesion during surgery and can remove it safely without causing new problems;
• other parts of your brain could be affected by the surgery, for example the parts that control your speech, sight, movement or hearing;
• you have a good chance of having your seizures stopped by the surgery; and
• you have any other medical conditions that would stop you from having this kind of surgery.

The results from the pre-surgical tests will help you and your neurologist decide whether surgery is an option for you, and what the result of the surgery might be.

Your specialist will also talk with you about the possible risks and benefits of having surgery.

For many people the results show that surgery is not an option: the majority of people who are recommended for surgery, and have these tests carried out, are unable to have surgery.

Take the action and make your life one without seizures occurring putting your life on HOLD you need to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!    That is all up to you, the patient diagnosed with it or questioning if they have seizures.

“Seizures are unpredictable. When a person has a seizure, it is usually not in a doctor’s office or other medical setting where health care providers can observe what is happening, so diagnosing seizures is a challenge. Accurate diagnosis depends on taking a careful medical history and using brain imaging and other tests to assess abnormal patterns of electrical activity in the brain. Proper diagnosis of seizures and epilepsy is essential for effective treatment. Diagnostic tests can help determine if and where a lesion in the brain is causing seizures. . In the majority of cases, there may be no cause that can be discovered for epilepsy or in some cases there are actual causes.”

John Hopkins Medicine (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/epilepsy)

Possible causes of Epilepsy:

Their epilepsy that is diagnosed with a IDIOPATHIC cause – meaning unknown cause and the patient could grow out of it in childhood in some cases (not all) depending on the type of seizure disorder and if the child doesn’t grow out of it the condition becomes chronic (for life).

Genetic influence (heredity). Some types of epilepsy run in families. In these instances, it’s likely that there’s a genetic influence. Researchers have linked some types of epilepsy to specific genes. But some people have genetic epilepsy that isn’t hereditary. Genetic changes can occur in a child without being passed down from a parent.For most people, genes are only part of the cause of epilepsy. Certain genes may make a person more sensitive to environmental conditions that trigger seizures.

• A genetic tendency, passed down from one or both parents (inherited).
• A genetic tendency that is not inherited, but is a new change in the person’s genes.

Although heredity has been known since antiquity to cause epilepsy, the progress to date in identifying the genetic basis of epilepsy has been limited primarily to the discovery of single gene mutations that cause epilepsy in relatively rare families. For the more common types of epilepsy, heredity plays a subtler role, and it is thought that a combination of mutations in multiple genes likely determine an individual’s susceptibility to seizures, as well as the responsiveness to antiepileptic medications.

Epilepsy can be caused by genetic factors (inherited) or acquired (a etiology—cause) , although in most cases it arises in part from both. The neurology and neurological sciences of Stanford Epilepsy Center Dr. Robert S. Fischer Ph D. presents in the article Genetic Causes of Epilepsy.

He also presents in this article our genes are the instruction set for building the human body. Genes reside on chromosomes.

Going to the basics is every person has 46 chromosomes, carrying a total of about 30,000 genes. We get half our chromosomes from our mother and half from our father. While genes determine the structure of our body, they also control the excitability of our brain cells. Defective genes can make hyperexcitable brain cells, which are prone to seizures.

In recent years, several epilepsy conditions have been linked to mutations in genes, but the matter is complicated by the fact that different genes may be involved in different circumstances.

In general, the most common epilepsy conditions, including partial seizures, seem to be more acquired than genetic.

Gene testing will soon be able to identify predispositions to epilepsy, allowing doctors to help a patient get treatment and to assist with family counseling. One day, doctors may simply be able to swap a patient’s cheek, test his or her genes, and predict response to various epilepsy medicines, eliminating much of the trial and error in medication choice that goes on today. Eventually, we may even be able to repair or replace defective genes that predispose a person to epilepsy, a process called gene therapy.

Lastly, Dr. Robert Fischer Ph D presented in his article, that I found very interesting, the general population has about a 1% risk of developing epilepsy.  Meanwhile, children of mothers with epilepsy have a 3 to 9% risk of inheriting this disease, while children of fathers have a 1.5 to 3% risk of inheritence. Still, the actual risk is upon the specific type of epilepsy. For example, partial seizures are less likely to run in families than are generalized seizures. In any event, with the usual forms of epilepsy, even if a parent does have the condition, there is more than a 90% chance that their child will not. So most epilepsies are acquired than inherited.

Clearly, genes determine a great deal of who we are, including our possible risk for epilepsy but slim versus a actual cause. But what happens to us in life and what we do is still the larger part of the risk for epilepsy.

A person given this diagnosis in the 1970’s, or before  and even up to the early 1990’s was quiet about ever letting people know about this since in the 1970’s and back with lack of knowledge, information to the public and definitely technology versus now.  Epilepsy is much more an accepted disease in the overall community compared to 20-25 years ago and back.  Heck in the 1970’s and back these patients when having a seizure episode were characterized as “Freaks”.  This was due to ignorance and lack of information to society/community but due to the past 20 to 25 years with the computer used more as a must in our lives with media, television and even our government they all have made it possible for society everywhere in the world to learn and understand diseases with acceptance in wanting to help those, particularly the US, but we still need a healthier America. It will take time to get there with the many multicultural lives that all live in the U.S. which practice differently on how important a healthy diet is with exercise balanced with rest.  Also including stress well controlled is not always in America on their top priority list in living.  Stress can even be a catalyst for a seizure but not the cause.

For a person diagnosed with or without a cause of epilepsy these steps in learning about the disease with higher technology and continuous research with medications over the years has allowed them to be able to live a completely healthy life doing the same things other people do without the disease but only if the patient is UNDER COMPLETE CONTROL  which includes being COMPLIANT with your Rx; this does exist in America.

Compliant meaning taking their medications everyday as ordered by their neurologist with yearly or sooner follow-up visits with blood levels of the anti-seizure medications there on.  This is the only way one with chronic epilepsy is guaranteed that living this way MAY stop the seizures from occurring (inactive epilepsy you can call it — meaning you’ll always have the disease but can put the seizure activity in a remission by medications preventing the seizure.)

How Epilepsy is Diagnosed:

The purpose for intial visits is for the Neurologist to determine if the patient is having a seizure or something else and to determine what diagnotic tooling tests to start with to help the doctor to find out the problem.  Apart from the description of the seizure, there are other things that can help to explain why your seizures have happened. Your medical history and any other medical conditions will also be considered as part of your diagnosis.

If you have a seizure you may not remember what has happened. It can be helpful to have a description of what happened from someone who saw your seizure, to pass on to your GP or specialist.

Here are some questions that may help you or someone who witnessed your seizure to record useful information about what happened:

Before the seizure

• Did anything trigger (set off) the seizure – for example, did you feel tired, hungry, or unwell?
• Did you have any warning that the seizure was going to happen?
• Did your mood change – for example, were you excited, anxious or quiet?
• Did you make any sound, such as crying out or mumbling?
• Did you notice any unusual sensations, such as an odd smell or taste, or a rising feeling in your stomach?
• Where were you and what were you doing before the seizure?
• TIME the seizure when it started and ended to tell the MD if not in the hospital!!

During the seizure

• Did you appear to be ‘blank’ or stare into space?
• Did you lose consciousness or become confused?
• Did you do anything unusual such as mumble, wander about or fiddle with your clothing?
• Did your colour change (become pale or flushed) and if so, where (face or lips)?
• Did your breathing change (for example, become noisy or look difficult)?
• Did any part of your body move, jerk or twitch?
• Did you fall down, or go stiff or floppy?
• Did you wet yourself?
• Did you bite your tongue or cheek?

After the seizure

• How did you feel after the seizure – did you feel tired, worn out or need to sleep?
• How long was it before you were able to carry on as normal?
• Did you notice anything else?

For F/U (follow up) visits is for the neurologist to see how well your seizures are under control by taking drug blood levels of the anti seizure medication your taking to make sure the medication is in a therapeutic drug level and if not he or she will make dose changes in the med(s) your on.  Possible do a EEG (electroencephalogram); the only test to decipher if you have spikes in your brain waves indicating you had a seizure determining from which lobe of the brain is having the seizures (a 26 lead to wires on the brain, which is painless).  Go to the expert for keeping you on the right track.  Its just like based on the principle why a person gets a check up on there car by seeing the mechanic (the car’s doctor) who fixes it.  The expert,  the Neurologist,  fix your seizures or get them under control.