Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Epilepsy Works

Transcript

How Epilepsy Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:15
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Ramsey
0:18
Speaker 1: over there. Ramsey guest producer and stuff you should Know,
0:23
Speaker 1: but straight up producer on movie Crush. Yeah, movie crushers
0:27
Speaker 1: might might know Ramsey's name. Hey, Ramsey, he knows that
0:33
Speaker 1: he knows the joll Well, that's the duct tape over
0:35
Speaker 1: his mouth helps for sure. So Chuck, today we were
0:40
Speaker 1: talking about epilepsy and this has been a long time request.
0:43
Speaker 1: We've gotten requests for this one over the years. Yeah,
0:46
Speaker 1: plenty of times. And uh, I don't know why it
0:49
Speaker 1: took us so long to do it, but I'm glad
0:51
Speaker 1: we finally did because it's something I didn't know about.
0:54
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things like you're aware
0:57
Speaker 1: of epilepsy and seizures and seizure disorders, but there's almost
1:01
Speaker 1: like this um cartoonishly narrow version of like what epilepsy is.
1:07
Speaker 1: It's just a movie version, yes, exactly, um, which actually
1:10
Speaker 1: is kind of accurate. Depending on the type of epilepsy
1:13
Speaker 1: or the type of seizure you're having. But um, there's
1:16
Speaker 1: it's such a broad spectrum of really just kind of
1:20
Speaker 1: as a physiological brain disorder that can happen in so
1:25
Speaker 1: many different ways that I had no idea. Yeah, the
1:29
Speaker 1: the movie while it's sort of like, uh, the every
1:33
Speaker 1: square is a rectangle type of thing. Like, movies only
1:37
Speaker 1: display seizures in one way, the Natalie Portman way. Yeah,
1:45
Speaker 1: the kind where you're like, you're on your back, convulsive,
1:49
Speaker 1: wildly frothing at the mouth. There's some jerk nearby with
1:52
Speaker 1: a wooden spoon. That's you don't want to do that.
1:55
Speaker 1: We should go ahead and say that, maybe more than once.
1:57
Speaker 1: Do not stick a spoon or your wallet, or a
1:59
Speaker 1: credit card anything else in somebody's mouth. He keeps them
2:02
Speaker 1: from swallowing their tongue. Now, you can't swallow your tongue, no,
2:05
Speaker 1: because it's attached. I tried, Look, yeah, you all right,
2:10
Speaker 1: stop it's not working. I was just grabbing a wooden spoon.
2:15
Speaker 1: You do that, keep that thing away from me. Yeah,
2:17
Speaker 1: but movies display them as one kind, and that those
2:20
Speaker 1: definitely exist. But it's far more nuanced than that. Leave
2:24
Speaker 1: it to movies to get rid of nuance, you know.
2:28
Speaker 1: But really isn't that the audience is fault. Isn't it
2:31
Speaker 1: up to the audience whether there's nuance or not. Well,
2:34
Speaker 1: what like during a seizure scene, next time, we should
2:37
Speaker 1: all just stand up and shout this isn't real. I
2:41
Speaker 1: think they would get the picture. All filmmakers would get
2:44
Speaker 1: the picture. How about some nuance? Well, and also, movies
2:47
Speaker 1: are all about drama, and a lot of seizures are
2:51
Speaker 1: not very dramatic. No, it's almost like in certain types
2:55
Speaker 1: of seizures, somebody like it just kind of zones out
2:58
Speaker 1: for a second and then comes back back and says,
3:00
Speaker 1: so what were we just started saying that that constitutes
3:04
Speaker 1: the seizure? Ak chuck, on any given evening. Sure, there's
3:09
Speaker 1: probably a big difference of what's going on in the
3:11
Speaker 1: brain of somebody who's actually enduring a seizure. Right then
3:15
Speaker 1: then you're zoning out, But to the observer it would
3:18
Speaker 1: look very similar. All right, that's a nice intro. Let's
3:22
Speaker 1: talk a little history first, can't we? Yeah, okay, well
3:26
Speaker 1: I will say this, um, ancient medicine has always been
3:31
Speaker 1: nutty as a fruitcake, but especially when it comes to seizures,
3:38
Speaker 1: from how they're diagnosed and what people think is going
3:40
Speaker 1: on to the various treatments. It is wacky. Yeah, people
3:45
Speaker 1: with epilepsy have been stigmatized for ever since there was civilization. Basically,
3:50
Speaker 1: the Code of Hammurabi, the first set of laws from
3:55
Speaker 1: Mesopotamia four thousand years ago, contains a law that says,
4:00
Speaker 1: if you have epilepsy, they didn't call it that, but
4:02
Speaker 1: they were talking about people with epilepsy, you can't get married. Yeah,
4:05
Speaker 1: they called it like the devil shakes or something basically,
4:09
Speaker 1: and the idea was that there were that you were
4:12
Speaker 1: infected with some sort of demon or the devil or
4:15
Speaker 1: something like that. And what's interesting is that by the
4:17
Speaker 1: time Hippocrates came around, he was like, no, no, no no,
4:21
Speaker 1: you guys have it all wrong. This is just some
4:23
Speaker 1: sort of disorder in the brain. You can probably treat
4:26
Speaker 1: with diet and exercise and that kind of stuff, which
4:29
Speaker 1: is actually pretty good advice for somebody who was driving
4:32
Speaker 1: this years ago. And then somehow they got lost and
4:36
Speaker 1: there everybody was like, no, no, it's demons, unclean spirits
4:39
Speaker 1: all that, and it went back to being a very
4:42
Speaker 1: stigmatized disease. Yeah, it was. It was an unexplainable thing,
4:47
Speaker 1: and I think back then. Um, now we try to
4:50
Speaker 1: poke around and learn like the real reasons behind something,
4:53
Speaker 1: even if it still remains unexplainable at the end. But
4:55
Speaker 1: back then they would just say they're possessed or they're
4:58
Speaker 1: a witch, right that which thing? It was in the
5:01
Speaker 1: Maletheus Maleficarum, the witch the witch Finder's handbook, it was
5:07
Speaker 1: basically in there, and either if you had epilepsy, you
5:10
Speaker 1: were a witch or you were possessed by a demon
5:14
Speaker 1: or in some cases you could be possessed by like
5:16
Speaker 1: an angel or something like that. Um, but more often
5:19
Speaker 1: than not, it was like a negative thing, like a
5:22
Speaker 1: negative spirit had possessed you, or you were under the
5:26
Speaker 1: influence of a witch. So somebody in your village could
5:29
Speaker 1: be accused of witchcraft if you had epilepsy because they
5:32
Speaker 1: were like this, which over here is giving this guy epilepsy. Berner,
5:37
Speaker 1: that was a thing. So epilepsy has always been tied
5:40
Speaker 1: to that and that law about people with epilepsy not
5:44
Speaker 1: being able to marry. There were laws on the books
5:47
Speaker 1: in the United States up until nine that said people
5:52
Speaker 1: with epilepsy can't get married, can't get married. Yeah, but
5:56
Speaker 1: I'm sure those were those like laws that aren't enforced, right,
6:00
Speaker 1: or were they literally enforcing those laws? I don't know
6:03
Speaker 1: that part. I'm sure they were back in like the
6:04
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties during the eugenics movement, right, I don't
6:08
Speaker 1: know that they were up until that sounds like one
6:11
Speaker 1: of those laws where like you can't spit on the
6:13
Speaker 1: street after sundown, you can't put lipstick on a horse. Oh,
6:18
Speaker 1: you can can't spit on the um. And then you know,
6:22
Speaker 1: ancient treatments are exactly what you would think, like everything
6:26
Speaker 1: from drinking blood to killing a dog and drinking it's bile. Uh,
6:32
Speaker 1: if someone's having a seizure near you p in your
6:36
Speaker 1: shoe and give it to them to drink, like it's
6:39
Speaker 1: a jellyfish sting. Yeah, but in the shoe. I I
6:42
Speaker 1: don't know, Like what is that just because they know
6:45
Speaker 1: that that you have something that holds urine? That would
6:47
Speaker 1: be my guess. Okay, I didn't know if that was like, oh, no,
6:50
Speaker 1: a p into like cupped hands, you're cupped hands and
6:54
Speaker 1: then just kind of like just drop it onto their mouth.
6:57
Speaker 1: God regardless. That's another thing. Don't put a wallet or
7:00
Speaker 1: a spoon or a credit card in somebody's mouth. Don't
7:03
Speaker 1: put your urine in somebody who's having a seizure's mouth.
7:06
Speaker 1: Doesn't help. Um. I also saw that it wasn't until
7:10
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century that people finally were like, I don't
7:13
Speaker 1: think this is actually infectious. One of the reasons why
7:16
Speaker 1: people with epilepsy were so shunned, just shunned and stigmatized
7:21
Speaker 1: and just kept on the outskirts or the yeah, the
7:24
Speaker 1: outskirts of society because people thought epilepsy was contagious and
7:28
Speaker 1: you can catch it from the breath of someone with epilepsy.
7:32
Speaker 1: So like people with epilepsy have been treated horribly for
7:37
Speaker 1: all the time basically, so hopefully we can kind of
7:41
Speaker 1: dispel any of the last myths around it. That's my
7:45
Speaker 1: hope with this episode, Chuck, Let's see if we can
7:47
Speaker 1: do it. Okay, Well, we like to start off every
7:50
Speaker 1: episode by stating our hopes and dreams. You know. Uh so,
7:54
Speaker 1: what's going on in the brain. We'll get to that
7:56
Speaker 1: a little bit more in detail, but kind of the
7:59
Speaker 1: way this article in our on our own website puts it,
8:02
Speaker 1: which this was so like ten years ago writing wise,
8:07
Speaker 1: but they basically talk about a kind of traffic jam
8:10
Speaker 1: in your brain when there's confusion when there's too much,
8:15
Speaker 1: too many neurons firing at once, and uh, it can
8:19
Speaker 1: cause an overwhelming sensation that can eventually cause a seizure. Yeah.
8:24
Speaker 1: It's like, um, I've seen it compared to like electrical storms. Yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: where basically it's a a sudden overload, an electrical overload
8:34
Speaker 1: in your brain and your brains just like I'm just
8:38
Speaker 1: shutting down here for a second and then it resets itself.
8:41
Speaker 1: Your brain sounds like pop Newark? Yeah, mind does mine? Uh?
8:47
Speaker 1: Mind us? Um? And you said from from a bunch
8:51
Speaker 1: of neurons firing at once, Yeah, not just a bunch
8:54
Speaker 1: of neurons, but those neurons that are firing fire a
8:57
Speaker 1: lot more than usual too, something like so they fire
9:00
Speaker 1: eighty times a second normally, where during a seizure they're
9:04
Speaker 1: going to fire like five times a second. Yeah. And
9:08
Speaker 1: you know, we'll talk about the brain machines later. But
9:11
Speaker 1: one thing that's characteristic of UH seizures is when they
9:15
Speaker 1: look at your brain scan, they're big peaks and valleys.
9:18
Speaker 1: It's not a steady stream of do do do do?
9:24
Speaker 1: Just make that noise? Who knew he was going to
9:28
Speaker 1: show up? That's great uh, but let's talk about some
9:33
Speaker 1: of the types of seizures. UM. There are a couple
9:35
Speaker 1: of broader categories, focal seizures or generalized seizures. Focal seizures
9:42
Speaker 1: are just in one part of the brain, were generalized
9:46
Speaker 1: and I think about six people with epilepsy have the
9:49
Speaker 1: focal kind and generalized are on both sides of the brain. Yeah,
9:53
Speaker 1: like your whole brain is under attack. Whereas yeah, the
9:56
Speaker 1: focal seizures, it could just be from like a lesion
9:59
Speaker 1: in its specific part, or there's something that's hypersensitive that's
10:03
Speaker 1: just just one tiny region of your brain, but it's
10:06
Speaker 1: enough to do some wacky stuff to you. And within
10:10
Speaker 1: those groups, there are further subgroups, for instance, a simple
10:14
Speaker 1: focal seizure or a complex focal seizure, or the two
10:17
Speaker 1: types of focal seizures. So as simple focal seizure is UM,
10:24
Speaker 1: you're you just kind of have like a weird feeling
10:27
Speaker 1: like you're conscious the whole time, yes, yeh. And it's
10:30
Speaker 1: also sometimes called an aura and an aura itself. It
10:35
Speaker 1: can just be a stand alone seizure, but it's kind
10:37
Speaker 1: of like seizure light L I T E. Right. Um.
10:41
Speaker 1: But that same simple focal seizure can also be the
10:45
Speaker 1: beginning of a larger complex focal seizure larger seizure of
10:50
Speaker 1: either type, where um, it's just the ora, it's just
10:53
Speaker 1: the beginning symptoms of it. So it can be stand
10:55
Speaker 1: alone or it can lead to a larger um seizure. Yeah,
11:00
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get in you send a really cool thing.
11:02
Speaker 1: We'll get into in a second about like exactly what
11:05
Speaker 1: a seizure is like. But quickly a complex vocal seizure
11:08
Speaker 1: the other type of focal seizure, UM, you do lose consciousness. Um.
11:14
Speaker 1: And if you are around someone that has one of these, uh,
11:19
Speaker 1: you might see it's a little bit more like what
11:21
Speaker 1: you would think of as a movie seizure. Yeah, life
11:24
Speaker 1: of a better term. It can be like twitching, blinking,
11:27
Speaker 1: Maybe someone's just sort of, um, seems dazed and sort
11:31
Speaker 1: of walking around. Well that's the thing that got me,
11:33
Speaker 1: Like when I think of, well they lost consciousness, it
11:36
Speaker 1: means they fainted or whatever. That's not necessarily what that
11:40
Speaker 1: means when you're having a seizure, Like, lose consciousness means
11:43
Speaker 1: like you you're not there, you blacked out, you're gone,
11:46
Speaker 1: You're not you're not your awareness is no longer functioning
11:49
Speaker 1: in the here and now. But people standing around you,
11:53
Speaker 1: they might see you just kind of walking slowly around
11:55
Speaker 1: in a circle or something like that, or sitting upright
11:57
Speaker 1: and just kind of with a blank look on your
11:59
Speaker 1: face or something like. It's not the traditional just falling over,
12:03
Speaker 1: fainting away loss of consciousness. That was that was new
12:07
Speaker 1: info to me. Yeah, and this aora you were talking about,
12:09
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that UM. Other document you sent was,
12:14
Speaker 1: I had no idea that you if you're a person
12:18
Speaker 1: with epilepsy, you can sometimes and it's it's different for everyone,
12:23
Speaker 1: but sometimes you can sense these seizures coming on days
12:27
Speaker 1: ahead of time. Yeah, that's I've never heard of that. Yeah.
12:30
Speaker 1: I think when you when you get when you start
12:34
Speaker 1: having seizures, if you UM are an actual like if
12:37
Speaker 1: you actually have epilepsy UM, you will start to notice
12:43
Speaker 1: patterns stereotypic. It means like it's typically follows the same patterns,
12:48
Speaker 1: the same sensations, and an aura can be anything from
12:52
Speaker 1: seeing blinking lights to hearing a humming sound to suddenly
12:56
Speaker 1: inexplicably experiencing panic or joy, or all number of things.
13:02
Speaker 1: But basically, your brain is suddenly doing something. It's suddenly
13:05
Speaker 1: getting a jolt of electricity that's actually not being stimulated
13:10
Speaker 1: from anything outside. You're not actually seeing bright lights, but
13:14
Speaker 1: your brain is showing you bright lights because that impulse
13:17
Speaker 1: is actually starting from the inside rather than coming from
13:20
Speaker 1: the outside in. That could be an oora. It could
13:23
Speaker 1: also be a weird taste. Yeah. I think a lot
13:25
Speaker 1: of times too, it's um People that experience the aura
13:28
Speaker 1: have a hard time describing it in a way that
13:30
Speaker 1: people that have never experienced the aura can understand. That's
13:34
Speaker 1: sort of one of the hallmarks of it is, you know,
13:37
Speaker 1: people like us end up stammering out you know, a
13:40
Speaker 1: bunch of things that we can relate to. But I
13:42
Speaker 1: think if you have had this sensation, it's sort of
13:46
Speaker 1: one of those things like you've got to kind of
13:47
Speaker 1: have it to really understand what it feels like. And
13:49
Speaker 1: and the reason why is because you're probably different parts
13:53
Speaker 1: of your brain that don't normally co function are functioning together,
13:58
Speaker 1: and the information you're getting is being merged together into
14:02
Speaker 1: it just a totally novel experience that no human has
14:05
Speaker 1: ever had before. Yeah, which is pretty awesome if you
14:08
Speaker 1: think about it in that way. Yeah, so pre seizure, um,
14:13
Speaker 1: a lot of different things can be happening. You can
14:15
Speaker 1: smell things, you can hear things, you could taste things.
14:19
Speaker 1: You might get blurry vision or like you might have
14:22
Speaker 1: a visual loss briefly or momentarily. Um, like you said,
14:27
Speaker 1: it might be a very pleasant feeling. It can be.
14:30
Speaker 1: I hope. I just wish it was like that for everybody. Sure,
14:32
Speaker 1: I wish everybody who had epilepsy just had nothing but
14:35
Speaker 1: pleasant brain attacks. Yeah, I totally agree. Uh So that's
14:42
Speaker 1: at the onset um sort of pre seizure activity, when
14:46
Speaker 1: you start to recognize these symptoms, and that's when you
14:50
Speaker 1: might tell, you know, your friend or loved one or
14:52
Speaker 1: whoever you're with, like, hey, I may have a seizure
14:56
Speaker 1: here soon or maybe hours from now. Yeah. Um. And
15:00
Speaker 1: I think this is from the Epilepsy Foundation, is called
15:02
Speaker 1: what happens during a seizure Really interesting. Yeah, But they
15:05
Speaker 1: say like every seizure has three stages to it. It's
15:10
Speaker 1: just some are really hard to discern, Some appear to
15:13
Speaker 1: just be the first, some have like clearly all three. Um.
15:17
Speaker 1: But that beginning thing can technically stand alone, and aura
15:22
Speaker 1: can be its own, like seizure light like I was saying,
15:25
Speaker 1: but more often than not, it will lead into the
15:27
Speaker 1: middle part of the um the seizure, which is called
15:31
Speaker 1: the ictic stage of the seizure. Yes, and that's from
15:36
Speaker 1: the first time symptoms and the aura accounts as a
15:39
Speaker 1: symptom like, that's officially part of the seizure. Uh, to
15:43
Speaker 1: the to the end of seizure activity activities at middle section. Yeah,
15:47
Speaker 1: and the middle section is what you usually think of
15:49
Speaker 1: as a seizure like that. It can be the classic
15:51
Speaker 1: movie seizure where you can be um, you can convulse,
15:55
Speaker 1: you can um your your your muscles might tighten suddenly um,
16:01
Speaker 1: and you might go rigid. You might actually lose muscle uma.
16:07
Speaker 1: And either way what those will result in it is
16:09
Speaker 1: called a drop attack where you are standing up and
16:12
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you tense up and fall over
16:14
Speaker 1: like remember the fainting goats. Yeah, my clients, I knew
16:16
Speaker 1: I knew that word from something my clonic goats and
16:19
Speaker 1: then um or you can just lose muscle tone and
16:22
Speaker 1: fall over. But either way it can be really bad
16:25
Speaker 1: news for you because you can hit your head and um,
16:28
Speaker 1: you can cut yourself. It's it's not good to fall
16:31
Speaker 1: over with zero control over your body. No. And then um,
16:35
Speaker 1: the final phase is post seizure, and that is that
16:41
Speaker 1: can be really rough. Um, and it can take hours
16:44
Speaker 1: or days to kind of fully feel like yourself again. Um.
16:48
Speaker 1: And if someone and we'll talk about what to do
16:50
Speaker 1: during a seizure, of course, Um, if you are around
16:53
Speaker 1: someone that's having one, don't put your wallet in their mouth.
16:56
Speaker 1: But post seizure is very important too, because you need
16:58
Speaker 1: to be there and be very comforting and um, just
17:01
Speaker 1: sort of take things slow in general. So um, that's
17:05
Speaker 1: called the post ictic phase. And that can actually last
17:08
Speaker 1: a lot longer than either of the other two phases
17:12
Speaker 1: of a seizure. It can last twenty minutes, thirty minutes,
17:15
Speaker 1: an hour, who knows. Yeah, you could be sleepy or
17:18
Speaker 1: scared or anxious, have memory loss, uh, difficulty talking. It's
17:23
Speaker 1: basically what it sounds like is is your brain and
17:27
Speaker 1: your body has just undergone a traumatic experience and it's
17:31
Speaker 1: just rough. Yeah, and it had to reset itself and
17:34
Speaker 1: it was a hard reset and now you're paying the
17:37
Speaker 1: prices price of it. Yeah. And that's not to even
17:39
Speaker 1: mention um, some of the physical things. That is one
17:42
Speaker 1: of the real dangers of having a seizure as if
17:46
Speaker 1: you know, you fall on a glass coffee table or
17:49
Speaker 1: you know, all the supplementary physical uh injuries that can occur.
17:53
Speaker 1: One of the things that stuck out to me from
17:55
Speaker 1: this UM Epilepsy Foundation article was that one of the
17:59
Speaker 1: signs and symptoms of the posteictic phase is um that
18:03
Speaker 1: the person may be frustrated, embarrassed, or ashamed. Man, that
18:08
Speaker 1: is so sad. Um, that's just so sad, you know,
18:12
Speaker 1: And I think it comes up later on too. And
18:14
Speaker 1: this article from how Stuff Works about like the challenges
18:17
Speaker 1: of living with epileps and you know, one of them,
18:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure is just feeling stigmatized. Sure, people, Yeah, you
18:24
Speaker 1: want to take a break. Yeah, we'll take a break
18:26
Speaker 1: and we'll pick up with the different types of generalized
18:28
Speaker 1: seizures right after this. If you want to know, then
18:31
Speaker 1: you're in luck. Just listen to Chuck self fusire. Alright,
18:55
Speaker 1: So generalized seizures. Remember we broke it down into the
18:59
Speaker 1: two broad category raised focal generalized. There are many kinds
19:03
Speaker 1: of generalized seizures. UM. The words you won't hear anymore
19:07
Speaker 1: from a doctor are petite mall and grand mall. Seizures.
19:11
Speaker 1: Those are outdated terms, but um, what they are now
19:15
Speaker 1: referred to as is formally petite mall seizures are now
19:18
Speaker 1: known as absence seizures uh and grand Mall are now
19:23
Speaker 1: known as tonic clonic seizures. And and yes they are outdated,
19:27
Speaker 1: but they still kind of highlight the early contributions of
19:32
Speaker 1: some of the first French neurologists in the late eighteenth
19:35
Speaker 1: century Dr Grandmall, who Stanley grand Mall. French neurologists. Um,
19:41
Speaker 1: they helped pull this out of the realm of superstition.
19:45
Speaker 1: And you know you can catch it from like someone
19:48
Speaker 1: with epilepsy breathing on you. So hats off to the
19:51
Speaker 1: early French neurologists for at least studying and identifying it.
19:55
Speaker 1: But that's why, that's why there are French terms that
19:58
Speaker 1: were applied to it previously. Just stuff to your work,
20:01
Speaker 1: pie hat I did actually a little chorus line thing
20:03
Speaker 1: like you can't see un at the table of my
20:05
Speaker 1: foot's kicking too. Uh So one of the uh like
20:09
Speaker 1: I like I said, the absent seizure formally petite mas seizure.
20:12
Speaker 1: This is usually in children, and I think overall, I
20:16
Speaker 1: don't know if you mentioned that children and people over
20:19
Speaker 1: seventy five are most likely to have epilepsy, which is interesting,
20:26
Speaker 1: and you can grow out of it depending on the
20:28
Speaker 1: type of epilepsy, and I think you can even grow
20:31
Speaker 1: back into it in your older age. Yeah, if you're
20:34
Speaker 1: seventy five or older, you're at high you're at the
20:36
Speaker 1: highest risk developing epilepsy. So the absent seizures um, like
20:40
Speaker 1: I said, are mostly in children. Um, that's just like
20:45
Speaker 1: where they zoned out, all yeah, exactly. You might see
20:47
Speaker 1: some eyelid fluttering or something like that, or a twitch
20:50
Speaker 1: or two, and it might just be a few seconds
20:52
Speaker 1: long and then it's over. Very hard to spot what
20:56
Speaker 1: was just going on. Were you thinking about Barney or
20:57
Speaker 1: were you having You're just tired like it, it's tough
21:00
Speaker 1: to spot. I think clonic seizures you will have convulsions
21:04
Speaker 1: and jerking movements on both sides of your body. Myoclonic
21:08
Speaker 1: like we talked about with the Goats, and it's funny.
21:10
Speaker 1: I just was going through the archive today and I
21:14
Speaker 1: saw her that was one of the best titles we've
21:16
Speaker 1: ever had, that dangle Goat fell Over on a Fainting Goat.
21:21
Speaker 1: I think that was one of yours. Maybe, I'm pretty sure.
21:24
Speaker 1: But myoclonic seizures, uh, the upper body is mainly involved,
21:30
Speaker 1: and it might look like someone has been shocked, like
21:32
Speaker 1: a jerking of the upper body. The tonic seizures is
21:36
Speaker 1: when you stiffen up, like you were talking about. Yeah,
21:39
Speaker 1: we just suddenly your muscles go fully tense and you
21:42
Speaker 1: just can't control them anymore. A tonic is the other
21:46
Speaker 1: one that you were talking about, when you lose muscle control. Yeah.
21:49
Speaker 1: And then there's the big daddy. This is the movie seizure,
21:53
Speaker 1: the tonic clonic seizure. Yes, just the name of it
21:56
Speaker 1: sounds menacing, you know, the tonic clonic. It sounds like, uh,
22:00
Speaker 1: Star Wars character from the dark Side or something chronic.
22:04
Speaker 1: The Fallen. Yeah, Grandmaal does too well. I think because
22:08
Speaker 1: of the dark Mall thing and grand mof Darken. It's
22:10
Speaker 1: a combination. Okay. I don't know who that last guy
22:14
Speaker 1: is grand mof Darken. Yeah, which one is that? All right?
22:17
Speaker 1: We should just move past this. No, No, I need
22:19
Speaker 1: to know, especially if it's somebody from like the original three.
22:22
Speaker 1: I think grand mof Tarkin was the guy. Wasn't that
22:25
Speaker 1: Peter Cushing? Yeah? Okay, the digitally Peter Cushing instead of
22:33
Speaker 1: fran Tarkington. What are you talking about? So the tonic
22:36
Speaker 1: chronic movie style seizure is that that's the one that
22:39
Speaker 1: you've probably seen on TV and films and after school specialist.
22:42
Speaker 1: Is when the body stiffens, you sort of pass out
22:46
Speaker 1: on the floor and your body is convulsive and jerking
22:49
Speaker 1: on the ground. You're like eyes roll back in your head. Yeah,
22:52
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I couldn't tell if it kind
22:53
Speaker 1: of alternates back between the two, or if it follows
22:57
Speaker 1: that discernible pattern where it goes tonic like your muscles
23:01
Speaker 1: tents you fall over, followed by chronic so you're convulsive
23:05
Speaker 1: after that, or if you kind of bounce back and forth,
23:08
Speaker 1: which would be pretty awful too. Yeah. Um, but that's yeah,
23:12
Speaker 1: that's the like you said, the movie, that's the movie
23:14
Speaker 1: seizure that use. I've never it just occurred to me.
23:16
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone have a seizure that that I
23:18
Speaker 1: could recognize. I'm not either, Yeah you just knocked would
23:23
Speaker 1: I did? Is that someone trying to come into this
23:25
Speaker 1: is like particle board? But I think it's still that
23:27
Speaker 1: counts um seizure is generally are pretty brief a few seconds,
23:33
Speaker 1: maybe a few minutes at the most, uh in most cases.
23:38
Speaker 1: But they, like we said, they take a lot out
23:41
Speaker 1: of your brain and body. Yeah, it's rough stuff. Here's
23:45
Speaker 1: the thing. It's like, so tens your tents all, like
23:49
Speaker 1: all the muscles in your body for a second. I
23:50
Speaker 1: don't even know how to do that, So it's it's
23:52
Speaker 1: like just doing it for a second. Sure, I'm like,
23:54
Speaker 1: oh man, I'm sure already I'm tired. Imagine doing that
23:58
Speaker 1: for like three minutes and like really like every muscle
24:03
Speaker 1: in your body's tense, or imagine like convulsive for a
24:07
Speaker 1: couple of minutes. Like heck, yeah, you're going to be
24:10
Speaker 1: physically tired. It's a violent reaction, it is. But also
24:13
Speaker 1: the normal processes of your body have just been totally
24:16
Speaker 1: thrown out of whack and now they have to get
24:18
Speaker 1: back into whack. And one of your body's like main
24:22
Speaker 1: things for telling you something's wrong is to feel nauseated.
24:26
Speaker 1: So you're going to probably feel nauseated. You're going to
24:29
Speaker 1: feel um, maybe perturbed. You're not gonna feel very good,
24:33
Speaker 1: and it's going to last a while. Sometimes people will
24:35
Speaker 1: sleep and maybe they'll sleep for a minute, maybe they'll
24:38
Speaker 1: sleep for an hour. There's a lot of different things
24:40
Speaker 1: that can happen in that post actal state. Um, but
24:44
Speaker 1: the the thing you want to look out for. So
24:47
Speaker 1: we've never seen anybody have a seizure before, but there
24:50
Speaker 1: if you do see someone who is having a seizure,
24:53
Speaker 1: there are some very specific things that you should do
24:56
Speaker 1: and not to. One of the things you should not
24:59
Speaker 1: do take your dirty wallet in their mouth, card or
25:05
Speaker 1: a spoon. What are you carrying a spoon around with
25:07
Speaker 1: you for anyway, If it's to save somebody from swallowing
25:11
Speaker 1: their tongue, leave it at home because you don't need
25:13
Speaker 1: it anymore. Yeah. The main thing you want to do
25:16
Speaker 1: is make sure that they will not further injure themselves.
25:21
Speaker 1: Like if you're in an apartment and they're on the couch,
25:25
Speaker 1: you may want to like move the coffee table out
25:27
Speaker 1: away from the couch or something like that. Um, turn
25:31
Speaker 1: them on their side if they have gone to the ground,
25:34
Speaker 1: so they won't choke. That is a real thing, But
25:36
Speaker 1: the tongue has nothing to do with it. It's I
25:39
Speaker 1: think something like that. Yeah, sure, uh, and just sort
25:42
Speaker 1: of try and ensure their safety, like don't try and
25:46
Speaker 1: hold them down. Don't try and get them to stop
25:49
Speaker 1: what they're doing, Like you can't. I'm gonna lay on
25:52
Speaker 1: until the demons get out. Yeah, it's not a good idea.
25:55
Speaker 1: So basically, just try and make things as safe as possible,
25:59
Speaker 1: Like if they're around them, if their clothing is right, yeah,
26:01
Speaker 1: keep sharp stuff away from uh. And yeah, if they're
26:05
Speaker 1: sitting up or standing up or whatever, yet try to
26:07
Speaker 1: get them on to the lowest point as comfortably. Um,
26:13
Speaker 1: if their clothes are like bunching up around their neck, like,
26:15
Speaker 1: try to loosen the clothing. Uh. Yeah, make it safe
26:19
Speaker 1: and comfortable for them. Yeah, don't don't be like all right,
26:23
Speaker 1: well I'm gonna go get my eyes checked or go
26:27
Speaker 1: or go call the police or not the police. But
26:29
Speaker 1: on one right, that was a really surprising thing that
26:32
Speaker 1: that um, this article said was don't leave, just hang
26:37
Speaker 1: out with them. That is more important than calling nine
26:40
Speaker 1: one one. There is a point where you should call
26:43
Speaker 1: nine on one though. There's a type of seizure or
26:46
Speaker 1: there's a mode that seizures can go into called um
26:50
Speaker 1: status epilectus, which is like a really bad situation. That's
26:56
Speaker 1: when it continues debated keep minutes. It used to be
27:01
Speaker 1: I think twenty or thirty minutes, and then they said
27:03
Speaker 1: that's way too long. If someone has is having a
27:06
Speaker 1: seizure of any type UM for five minutes or longer,
27:12
Speaker 1: you want to call nine on one because what you're
27:14
Speaker 1: seeing is a medical emergency on Under almost every single
27:19
Speaker 1: case of a seizure, the brain can kind of reset
27:22
Speaker 1: itself um and come out of the seizure within a
27:26
Speaker 1: five minute period. If it doesn't, it strongly suggests that
27:29
Speaker 1: it's not going to happen, and they may actually have
27:32
Speaker 1: to medically induce a coma to just stop the electrical
27:36
Speaker 1: activity in the brain and let it reset itself. So
27:39
Speaker 1: you've got a bona fide medical emergency on your hands.
27:43
Speaker 1: Or the other way it can happen is they can
27:46
Speaker 1: be having a seizure and then have another seizure and
27:49
Speaker 1: not regain consciousness in between. That actually qualifies as a
27:54
Speaker 1: status epilectus seizure as well, and you want to call
27:57
Speaker 1: nine and one for those, or if uh, if it's
28:00
Speaker 1: a pregnant woman, then you want to call nine one
28:03
Speaker 1: one because there can you know, be further complications there, Yeah,
28:07
Speaker 1: for sure. Alright, So it looks like there's six different
28:11
Speaker 1: types of epilepsy. If I'm reading this right, we'll say
28:15
Speaker 1: at least six, starting with benign rolandic epilepsy. This is
28:20
Speaker 1: the one that you would have in childhood and that
28:23
Speaker 1: you would probably outgrow, Hence the benign thing. Yeah, it's
28:27
Speaker 1: just kind of like, yeah, I don't any more about it.
28:30
Speaker 1: It's just a phase the kids going through, you know. Uh.
28:35
Speaker 1: Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy is actually one you wouldn't have it
28:40
Speaker 1: in early childhood, but it actually would come on around
28:43
Speaker 1: the same time as puberty. As if puberty is not
28:45
Speaker 1: tough enough now with caesures. Yeah, I mean I feel
28:49
Speaker 1: so bad for for for anyone that has this condition,
28:52
Speaker 1: but especially like if it comes on at puberty, you
28:54
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. Well. Plus also it's like
28:57
Speaker 1: the severe type of siege. There's tonic clonic seizures usually
29:01
Speaker 1: characterize it or myoclonic, and you don't you don't outgrow it.
29:06
Speaker 1: He comes on in childhood, but yet you got you
29:08
Speaker 1: have it for life. Lenox guest syndrome. I feel like
29:12
Speaker 1: I've heard of this one before. I had not. This
29:14
Speaker 1: one's very severe and there are many kinds of caesars
29:18
Speaker 1: that you can have and uh I believe this one
29:22
Speaker 1: sticks around for life too. It doesn't. It's uh usually
29:26
Speaker 1: it comes after it's become a parent. That they're cognitive impairments. Um.
29:32
Speaker 1: It can there can be delayed motor skill development. Um.
29:36
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like co morbid with um like
29:40
Speaker 1: a type of cognitive impairment as well. But it's it's
29:43
Speaker 1: characterized by drop attacks to where you can really injure
29:46
Speaker 1: yourself because you just fall over because there's um an
29:50
Speaker 1: impairment in the muscle or the motor cortex. Look at you,
29:57
Speaker 1: I got it eventually. Reef epilepsy is the one that
30:01
Speaker 1: you might if you have ever like gotten a strobe
30:05
Speaker 1: light warning or heard of that Pokemon thing, which that
30:08
Speaker 1: legend is actually true. Yeah, I mean this this is
30:10
Speaker 1: one that is triggered by something in the environment. Um.
30:15
Speaker 1: In fact, remember I told you I went to that
30:16
Speaker 1: David or was going to that David Byrne concert. We
30:19
Speaker 1: got a ticket holder's got emails the day before the
30:22
Speaker 1: show that said, you know, trigger warning, we use strobe
30:26
Speaker 1: lights in this show. So I think they for stuff
30:29
Speaker 1: like this that kind of are sending that stuff out
30:31
Speaker 1: now to them? Yeah, yeah, because I mean you can
30:35
Speaker 1: have a seizure, even if you don't have epilepsy. You
30:38
Speaker 1: can have a seizure brought on by flashing lights and
30:41
Speaker 1: they're fast enough that just basically get your brain going
30:44
Speaker 1: and and it's off. Uh, not a seizure, but an
30:50
Speaker 1: intense strobe light situation. I think makes everyone feel a
30:53
Speaker 1: little off. It makes me dance. Where are the bubbles?
31:00
Speaker 1: Give me my glowstick? Uh temporal wait, hold on, let
31:04
Speaker 1: me give you one more about it. So, the reflects epilepsy,
31:07
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to just be from like flickering lights,
31:09
Speaker 1: like the strobe lights can be touched there they like different. Basically,
31:15
Speaker 1: where you have reflects epilepsy, there's a part of your
31:18
Speaker 1: brain that receives sensory stimuli that is hyper sensitive. So
31:25
Speaker 1: whether it's your eyes, whether it's your ears, whether it's
31:28
Speaker 1: your skin, and it'll be like a very small region
31:31
Speaker 1: on your skin and it can be activated by tapping, scratching, rubbing,
31:35
Speaker 1: and toothbrushing. Interesting, which if you think about it, that
31:39
Speaker 1: is interesting. But also if you are going to trigger
31:42
Speaker 1: a seizure from brushing your own teeth, that would suck. Yeah,
31:45
Speaker 1: you know, I bet there are some ways around that. Oh,
31:48
Speaker 1: surely there are, Like an electric toothbrush might have a
31:51
Speaker 1: different or something. I hope. So, although I've bet an
31:54
Speaker 1: electric toothbrushure would set it off more than anything. I
31:57
Speaker 1: guess it depends. I don't know. Uh. Temporal low epilepsy
32:02
Speaker 1: the most common kinds of seizure here complex vocal, although
32:06
Speaker 1: there are other you know, seizures that can occur to
32:09
Speaker 1: And this is the one where I think it's like, well,
32:13
Speaker 1: it takes place in the in the temporal lobe, which
32:16
Speaker 1: controls emotion and memory. But I think these are the
32:18
Speaker 1: ones that are can be really interesting and hard to
32:20
Speaker 1: describe by someone that's had one. Yeah, Like you'll have
32:24
Speaker 1: a bunch of memories come back all of a sudden
32:26
Speaker 1: at once, which, um, that's another thing another common device
32:30
Speaker 1: you'll see in movies, not necessarily with seizures, but when
32:32
Speaker 1: somebody's like like their brains being taken over or something
32:36
Speaker 1: like that. Um, the like just a bunch of different
32:39
Speaker 1: like visualizations will flash or whatever their life. Yeah, I
32:42
Speaker 1: think that that's basically what happens with temporal lobe epilepsy. Interesting, yeah,
32:47
Speaker 1: or you can also have just be overwhelmed by a
32:49
Speaker 1: bunch of weird emotions good, bad, neutral that are not
32:55
Speaker 1: being brought on by anything but the seizure. Yeah. I
33:01
Speaker 1: at that David Burn show, I had a moment where
33:03
Speaker 1: I was so overwhelmed with the sound, the lights, the
33:09
Speaker 1: the emotion of the moment in the art that I
33:13
Speaker 1: felt like I was on ecstasy at one point. What
33:15
Speaker 1: song was it? That specific moment was during Once in
33:18
Speaker 1: a Lifetime? So that was coming together with nostalgia to
33:21
Speaker 1: just like suck me in the face, But you know
33:24
Speaker 1: it was it had to do with other things as well.
33:27
Speaker 1: So I mean, while again did not have a seizure,
33:29
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that's like. It's interesting to
33:32
Speaker 1: feel the brain sort of get rocked a little bit
33:36
Speaker 1: to where you can feel it, but with positive feelings. Sure. See,
33:40
Speaker 1: that's what epilepsy should be. It should be like at
33:44
Speaker 1: ecstasy in your brain. Yeah uh. And then frontal lobe epilepsy.
33:52
Speaker 1: It's the final kind, and this is the one where
33:55
Speaker 1: you're more likely to have like your body herking and
33:58
Speaker 1: jerking really stiff on one side. Right, Yeah, so you
34:02
Speaker 1: got me with the hurricane and Jerky always reminds me
34:05
Speaker 1: of the Mr. Show Herky Jerky Dancer. Um, should we
34:10
Speaker 1: take a break. I think so Mr Show made an appearance.
34:13
Speaker 1: So yeah, all right, we'll be right back. If you
34:16
Speaker 1: want to know then you're in luck. Just listen to Chuck.
34:41
Speaker 1: One of the things I saw, I want to say
34:43
Speaker 1: that's not really apropos of what we're going to talk
34:45
Speaker 1: about next, but when um, someone is having a seizure,
34:49
Speaker 1: during the middle seizure part, they may um start start
34:54
Speaker 1: doing like involuntary movements, like everything from lip smacking to
34:59
Speaker 1: like playing at their buttons to actually undressing and dressing.
35:03
Speaker 1: I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, that is interesting,
35:07
Speaker 1: especially when you remember Alien Hands syndrome, and that was
35:10
Speaker 1: the corpus closum, and I mean parts of the corpus
35:13
Speaker 1: closum are involved sometimes with the epilepsy too. One of
35:16
Speaker 1: the other things epilepsy bears a strong resemblance to, especially
35:19
Speaker 1: in the fact that it has an aura and an
35:22
Speaker 1: actual middle phase and then a recovery phase are migraines.
35:27
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, very much related to migraines. And actually you
35:30
Speaker 1: can get migraines as a symptom of the recovery phase
35:33
Speaker 1: of the post eichtal phase, right, which that would really
35:36
Speaker 1: suck to have a huge seizure and then come out
35:39
Speaker 1: of it and have a migraine. Yes, that would not
35:42
Speaker 1: be good. It would not. Uh. The causes of epilepsy
35:46
Speaker 1: are It sort of depends. Sometimes you can have a
35:49
Speaker 1: brain injury. Sometimes, like if you get hit in the head.
35:52
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can have a tumor that's putting pressure on
35:55
Speaker 1: the brain. Um. If you can determine the cause as
35:59
Speaker 1: a doctor, then it's called symptomatic epilepsy. If you're not
36:03
Speaker 1: quite sure what's going on, that's a head scratcher, yeah,
36:06
Speaker 1: or idiopathic epilepsy. It's so funny they have a name
36:10
Speaker 1: for it rather than I don't know sure. I mean,
36:13
Speaker 1: I guess that makes sense, but I don't know is
36:16
Speaker 1: really what that means. And then there's even another category,
36:20
Speaker 1: cryptogenic epilepsy. And that's when the doctor is like, well,
36:26
Speaker 1: I kind of have some information, but I'm not quite
36:28
Speaker 1: sure if it's symptomatic or idiopathic. It's really specific, it is,
36:35
Speaker 1: unless it's idiopathic, then it's totally non specific. That's right.
36:39
Speaker 1: So UM. I found this really interesting the way that
36:44
Speaker 1: um epilepsy is diagnosed, because just because you have one
36:48
Speaker 1: seizure doesn't mean you have epilepsy. Yeah, if you have
36:50
Speaker 1: a seizure, you want to go to the doctor to
36:52
Speaker 1: find out if actually, no, you actually do have epilepsy.
36:56
Speaker 1: But there's a number of ways you can get You
36:57
Speaker 1: can have a seizure. You if you're a infin or
37:00
Speaker 1: a kid and your temperature gets to a hundred point
37:04
Speaker 1: four degrees fahrenheit or higher I think thirty eight degrees celsius.
37:09
Speaker 1: That's called a febra febrile seizure feverish seizure. Doesn't mean
37:15
Speaker 1: you have epilepsy. You may never have another seizure. Again, Supposedly,
37:19
Speaker 1: if you are withdrawing from alcohol or some types of drugs,
37:23
Speaker 1: you can suffer seizures. But I saw another research of
37:26
Speaker 1: the literature that said this is not true. It's just
37:29
Speaker 1: a legend. But like a medical legend um Supposedly, hypoglycemia,
37:35
Speaker 1: abnormal heart rhythm, panic attacks, all of those can bring
37:39
Speaker 1: on seizures or mimic seizures. And then there's something called
37:42
Speaker 1: a pseudo seizure, which to anybody's witnessing it would be like,
37:48
Speaker 1: that's a seizure, that person must have epilepsy. But if
37:51
Speaker 1: you had that person um undergoing an electro and cephalogram
37:55
Speaker 1: at the time a brain scan, you would see that
37:58
Speaker 1: their brain waves were not doing somebody who has epilepsy's
38:01
Speaker 1: brain would be doing. And that's actually brought on by
38:04
Speaker 1: psychological distress, yeah, or like past abuse in your life
38:09
Speaker 1: or something like that, which is bad enough. Yeah, I
38:11
Speaker 1: mean that's yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned the e G.
38:15
Speaker 1: The electro cephalograph um. At this point, if if you're
38:20
Speaker 1: being hooked up to one of those machines, you've probably
38:23
Speaker 1: already gone to the doctor had some blood tests done. Um.
38:27
Speaker 1: It's interesting that, like the doctor, it's sort of like
38:31
Speaker 1: bringing your car in. You're like, well it's not making
38:33
Speaker 1: that noise now, and the mechanics like, well, I don't
38:35
Speaker 1: know what to do then, right. Normally mechanics like, well,
38:37
Speaker 1: just let me take your car home for a week, right,
38:38
Speaker 1: And you gotta let them the same thing with your doctor.
38:41
Speaker 1: You have to move into your doctor's house until you
38:43
Speaker 1: have a seizure in front of That's not true, but
38:46
Speaker 1: they can and will try and induce the seizure sometimes
38:49
Speaker 1: so they can really see what's going on. It's not
38:52
Speaker 1: so during an e G. They will try and to
38:54
Speaker 1: do the seizure. They may put the strobe light in
38:57
Speaker 1: front of your face. It'll take you to a David
38:59
Speaker 1: Burn show exactly WHI should be a great way to
39:02
Speaker 1: get treated, or they'll tell you to come in um
39:05
Speaker 1: and not having slept. Yeah, fatigue is one thing, lack
39:08
Speaker 1: of sleep that can bring them on its trigger. Yeah,
39:11
Speaker 1: so they will try and induce the seizure A lot
39:14
Speaker 1: of times after an e G. They will go hole
39:17
Speaker 1: hog with a CT SCAN or an m R I.
39:20
Speaker 1: And what is that funny? I just imagine you having
39:24
Speaker 1: to ride a hog while you have the e G
39:26
Speaker 1: thing on your head. Uh, C T or an m
39:30
Speaker 1: R I. Um. Have you ever been to one of
39:32
Speaker 1: those parties where they have the whole hog cooked just
39:35
Speaker 1: like layd there looking like a hog? Yes, and I
39:39
Speaker 1: shouldn't go in any more detail because they're vegetarian and
39:41
Speaker 1: vegan listeners would not be happy. But yes, I have
39:44
Speaker 1: all right, I have not it's something else. I bet.
39:48
Speaker 1: I can't imagine just sticking a fork in something that
39:51
Speaker 1: looks like an animal. Yeah, it says stick a fork
39:54
Speaker 1: in me. I'm done, all right, Yeah, we'll just move on. Uh. Yes,
40:00
Speaker 1: the C T R, m R I. UM. What they
40:05
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do there is just get an
40:07
Speaker 1: inside peak at exactly what's going on in the brain.
40:10
Speaker 1: Like you were talking about. There could be a legion
40:12
Speaker 1: or something that they don't see and this will this
40:15
Speaker 1: will show all. Yeah. So again you come in, they say,
40:19
Speaker 1: so you head a seizure. Huh. Put this calander on
40:22
Speaker 1: your head and look into this light while I start
40:26
Speaker 1: flashing it and make sure you haven't slept in a day,
40:29
Speaker 1: and they try to trigger a seizure. And then they
40:32
Speaker 1: look at the e G. Read out of what your
40:34
Speaker 1: brain is doing when they say, yeah, this is an
40:37
Speaker 1: epileptic seizure. This isn't just you know, uh, some other
40:40
Speaker 1: type of seizure. This is like epilepsy. And then yeah,
40:44
Speaker 1: they'll put you through the Wonder machine or something like
40:46
Speaker 1: that and look for lesions, weird um, oxygen concentrations, whatever
40:51
Speaker 1: to try to pinpoint where the problems coming from, because
40:54
Speaker 1: again it can just be one specific region of your brain,
40:57
Speaker 1: or it could be a generalized type of seizure in
40:59
Speaker 1: your whole brain. And then based on these clues, they
41:02
Speaker 1: start deducing what type of epilepsy you might have, right uh,
41:07
Speaker 1: and then what you can do about it. Um, obviously
41:10
Speaker 1: you're not gonna eat a pigeon these days or drink
41:13
Speaker 1: dog bile. But um well you could eat pigeon, don't
41:18
Speaker 1: drink the dog bile. No. Uh. There is medication that
41:23
Speaker 1: you can take, but from what I read, it's it
41:27
Speaker 1: can be pretty rough on you and a lot of
41:29
Speaker 1: bad side effects. So what you try to do, I
41:33
Speaker 1: think with a lot of like with a lot of
41:35
Speaker 1: hardcore medications like this, is find that balance of what
41:39
Speaker 1: do I need to try and control these seizures and
41:42
Speaker 1: still kind of be able to operate and have a
41:44
Speaker 1: good quality of life. Yeah, And I think a lot
41:46
Speaker 1: like um if you've been diagnosed as say like bipolar
41:50
Speaker 1: or depressive disorder something like that, where there's a lot
41:54
Speaker 1: of different medications out there that do different things and
41:57
Speaker 1: you're probably going to have to try a different combination
42:00
Speaker 1: until you find the one that works best for you.
42:02
Speaker 1: Um as as this article put it, to balance quality
42:06
Speaker 1: of life and control of your seizures, that's what you're
42:09
Speaker 1: looking for in a medication or combination of medications. Same
42:13
Speaker 1: thing with with epilepsy. Yeah, I mean you may not
42:16
Speaker 1: uh want the full dose and you may just want
42:19
Speaker 1: to limit your seizures and have an acceptable amount of
42:22
Speaker 1: seizures because the medication is so rough on you. Sure, yeah,
42:25
Speaker 1: that's the worst part. And they've actually come up with
42:27
Speaker 1: a device called the vegas nerves stimulator. Remember the vegas nerve,
42:31
Speaker 1: I don't remember it. Was it a female orgasm episode
42:33
Speaker 1: that it played such a role in. I think we've
42:36
Speaker 1: it's a couple of them. We said God was either
42:39
Speaker 1: a woman or clearly favors women, because women's orgasms are
42:43
Speaker 1: triggered by vagus nerves and even if you become paralyzed,
42:47
Speaker 1: the vegas nervous still intact. That's right, only for women. Well,
42:50
Speaker 1: there's a device that's basically like a pacemaker for your brain,
42:55
Speaker 1: is what they call it. And it stimulates that vegas
42:57
Speaker 1: nerve and it just sends a little like t called
43:00
Speaker 1: pulse on like a regular um rhythm to your brain.
43:05
Speaker 1: And they're like, this really works. It doesn't necessarily get
43:08
Speaker 1: rid of all of your seizures, but it brings the
43:11
Speaker 1: frequency of them down so much that you could just
43:13
Speaker 1: get by with a low dosage of medication. But they
43:17
Speaker 1: have no idea how it works. They think maybe it
43:20
Speaker 1: keeps the brain juiced on a normal basis. It's almost
43:25
Speaker 1: like a pacemaker. It is that. Well, like I said,
43:28
Speaker 1: they call it the pacemaker. Okay, I said that. And
43:31
Speaker 1: then there's the well, I mean it sounds it sounds crazy,
43:36
Speaker 1: but if it is isolated in one part of your brain,
43:39
Speaker 1: they can actually go in and just remove that part
43:41
Speaker 1: of your brain in many cases and solve the problem.
43:45
Speaker 1: And no, not only no side effects. And they're not
43:49
Speaker 1: taking a stab in the dark, like they know what
43:50
Speaker 1: parts of the brain they can remove. They're not like,
43:53
Speaker 1: well let's try this um. But sometimes you actually show
43:57
Speaker 1: intellectual improvements after the surgery, like when they remove the
44:00
Speaker 1: cryan from Homer's brain, remember that one. That was one
44:04
Speaker 1: of the best ones ever. There's also a corpus coloss
44:08
Speaker 1: to me, yeah, I'm saying it right, which is so
44:12
Speaker 1: remember you know there's a type of generalized seizures or
44:15
Speaker 1: the whole brain seizures. Well, the corpus colossum is the
44:18
Speaker 1: white matter that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.
44:21
Speaker 1: So they just go in there and go and no
44:24
Speaker 1: more generalized brain seizures. Right. The thing is is there.
44:28
Speaker 1: I'm very curious what the side effects are of that.
44:30
Speaker 1: Because we developed a corpus colossum over time and there's
44:36
Speaker 1: this really interesting thing. We got to do this someday
44:38
Speaker 1: on a guy named Julian Jane came up with the
44:40
Speaker 1: bicameral mind, and he had this theory that before we
44:44
Speaker 1: had a corpus colossum and the two hemispheres talked to
44:47
Speaker 1: one another. That was back when we used to think
44:50
Speaker 1: the gods were talking to us. One part of our
44:52
Speaker 1: brain was talking to us, and it seemed like it
44:55
Speaker 1: was coming from outside of our brain, like the angel
44:58
Speaker 1: and the devil on your shoulder, basedically or literally the
45:01
Speaker 1: gods having like a role in your daily life and
45:04
Speaker 1: guiding you through life. It was actually one side of
45:06
Speaker 1: your brain, but since it wasn't connected to the other side,
45:09
Speaker 1: it didn't seem like it was for coming from you.
45:11
Speaker 1: And so to cut the corpus colossom, I wonder if
45:14
Speaker 1: it would have similar effects like that. Yeah, and I
45:16
Speaker 1: think that also was um for alien hand syndrome. The
45:20
Speaker 1: corpus clossum had a lot to do with it because
45:22
Speaker 1: one side like a malfunction of it because one side
45:25
Speaker 1: isn't talking to the other. Interesting um. There was also
45:31
Speaker 1: some types of epilepsy called intractable epilepsy where and this
45:34
Speaker 1: is like this is really high of people who have epilepsy,
45:39
Speaker 1: have intractable epilepsy, Like it's not going away. Yeah, and
45:43
Speaker 1: it's really tough to control even when you're being treated,
45:49
Speaker 1: and you can actually die too. Um, I get the feelings.
45:52
Speaker 1: Is pretty rare, but sudden, unexplained death in epilepsy or
45:56
Speaker 1: sued up is something that can happen. Yeah, they they again,
46:01
Speaker 1: they don't know how it works, but they think that
46:04
Speaker 1: maybe it has to do with a regular heartbeat that
46:07
Speaker 1: can result a regular breathing, or that someone gets trapped
46:12
Speaker 1: face down in something like betting and suffocated during a seizure,
46:17
Speaker 1: because a lot of seizures, a lot of types of seizures,
46:20
Speaker 1: especially tonic ones. It's the tonic that, um, yeah, that
46:23
Speaker 1: you're hap them while you're sleeping, and if you're sleeping
46:28
Speaker 1: on your stomach, you could conceivably choke or suffocate. They
46:32
Speaker 1: think maybe that has something to do with it, but
46:34
Speaker 1: they're just not sure. I saw an obituary the other
46:37
Speaker 1: day for someone that died in their sleep, and that
46:41
Speaker 1: really struck me for the first time. Is like, that's
46:44
Speaker 1: a really nice way to say someone died in bed. Like,
46:49
Speaker 1: I don't think it ever happens where someone's just asleep
46:52
Speaker 1: and doesn't wake up right, Like, I think you're just
46:54
Speaker 1: asleep in bed. You wake up and you're like, I'm dying,
46:58
Speaker 1: and then you die, and it's just it's like a
47:00
Speaker 1: really nice way to say they died in their sleep.
47:02
Speaker 1: We've talked about that before, about somebody, can you really
47:06
Speaker 1: die while you're asleep and I'm dying? We were talking
47:11
Speaker 1: about someone who woke up to die in pain. I
47:16
Speaker 1: think that's probably how it always rather than just dying
47:18
Speaker 1: in their sleep. No, I think people might pass real sleep.
47:20
Speaker 1: I think you could. That's sweet, especially if you're on
47:24
Speaker 1: the dope, like they got you doped up, like in
47:27
Speaker 1: hospice or something like that. You can very easily just
47:30
Speaker 1: die in your sleep while you're kind of out of it.
47:33
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I hope you're wrong. Yeah, me too. Um,
47:37
Speaker 1: living with epilepsy, Uh, you know, it can be very tough.
47:42
Speaker 1: It's you have to think about everything from driving to
47:47
Speaker 1: going swimming, by yourself, raising an infant, if you're a
47:51
Speaker 1: woman or a man or a man. Yeah, but yeah,
47:54
Speaker 1: this one, this one, Um specifically said, like, epilepsy can
47:58
Speaker 1: can be a challenge to I mean you know, when
48:01
Speaker 1: they're deciding whether to have kids or not, you know,
48:04
Speaker 1: they that's just I hadn't even thought about that. But
48:08
Speaker 1: you can't have a seizure while you're breastfeeding or something.
48:11
Speaker 1: What happens after that? Yeah? Or I mean if you're
48:13
Speaker 1: just a the lone caregiver to a child at home, uh,
48:17
Speaker 1: to a eighteen month old, and all of a sudden
48:21
Speaker 1: you need treatment yourself. Yeah, that's a scary thing. All
48:25
Speaker 1: the all the states and the United States have different
48:27
Speaker 1: rules as far as driving. Uh, Like you know, sometimes
48:31
Speaker 1: it's you can't have had a seizure for the past
48:34
Speaker 1: twelve months or something. Yeah. You mediated a guy who
48:37
Speaker 1: had a couple of teachers and like he like had
48:41
Speaker 1: he lost his license because of it. Yeah, like think
48:43
Speaker 1: I think it was twelve months in Virginia or something.
48:47
Speaker 1: Uh what else? Um, yeah, I think that's it. Oh well,
48:51
Speaker 1: I did look up celebrities with epilepsy, of course, because
48:55
Speaker 1: that's all anyone cares about, right, Prince know that um
49:01
Speaker 1: Adam Horovitz. I didn't know that from the BC Boys,
49:05
Speaker 1: Mr Danny Glover, I didn't know that Little Wayne, Big Wayne? Uh?
49:11
Speaker 1: Is there a medium? Wayne? And the Rock? No little
49:14
Speaker 1: Wayne uh Neil Young really the great Harriet Tubman, I
49:21
Speaker 1: think we knew that. And then uh the NFL former
49:26
Speaker 1: NFL twins Tik and Ronde Barber, and there were twins
49:30
Speaker 1: who both had it, So that's oh yeah, they think
49:32
Speaker 1: there might be a genetic basis to it. Yeah, I
49:34
Speaker 1: don't think we even mentioned that. They've identified something like
49:36
Speaker 1: two hundred different gene deficiencies that could could possibly lead
49:40
Speaker 1: to epilepsy. And interestingly, if you were a child and
49:44
Speaker 1: you were diagnosed with epilepsy, your doctor may say, put
49:48
Speaker 1: that kid on Atkins. Oh yeah, keytonic diets might have
49:52
Speaker 1: something that helps. Yeah, they think, well, like when you're
49:55
Speaker 1: when you have kind of gone through your fat stores,
49:58
Speaker 1: you go to key tones in your brain, and it's
50:02
Speaker 1: got to have something to do with that. Start burning
50:04
Speaker 1: keytones in your brain. That's got to have an impact
50:07
Speaker 1: on your electrical activity. Why it only works on kids
50:10
Speaker 1: rather than adults is it's a mystery to me. You
50:13
Speaker 1: got anything else? I got nothing else? Well, let's epilepsy everybody.
50:17
Speaker 1: If you ever see somebody who's having a seizure, remember
50:20
Speaker 1: everything we told you and keep that spoon out of
50:23
Speaker 1: their mouth. And since I said that's time for listener mail.
50:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this boy marathon ors we heard from them.
50:32
Speaker 1: We probably should have thought that through, Like we did
50:35
Speaker 1: a marathon episode asking for people to email. Yeah, I
50:38
Speaker 1: think we would have gotten the same amount of emails
50:39
Speaker 1: for marathons, Like I love marathon. People who marathon love
50:42
Speaker 1: to talk about marathons, So we were asking for it
50:46
Speaker 1: even without asking for it. Well, and we also asked
50:49
Speaker 1: about the marathon high versus a marijuana high, and turns
50:54
Speaker 1: out a lot of marathon or smoke weed. I bet,
50:57
Speaker 1: I will, I can. I can imagine which one you selected. Well,
51:01
Speaker 1: actually I did not select one of those because they
51:04
Speaker 1: were kind of all the same. They were like one
51:06
Speaker 1: guy said, it's not the same. One guy said he
51:08
Speaker 1: would get high and run. I saw that guy until
51:11
Speaker 1: the runners had kicked in, and he said, so I
51:13
Speaker 1: would be high the entire marathon. Yeah, yeah, like you're insane.
51:17
Speaker 1: His friends thought, he was, how would you even start?
51:19
Speaker 1: You know? He was probably should I eat combos today
51:23
Speaker 1: or run a marathon today. I had a friend who
51:26
Speaker 1: used to get super high and go to the end
51:29
Speaker 1: workout and lift weights like Kevin Spacey, Oh that's right,
51:33
Speaker 1: and America. That's always seems so bizarre to me. And
51:36
Speaker 1: look what happened to him. Yeah, you want to stay
51:38
Speaker 1: away from the weed for the weightlifting combo? All right,
51:42
Speaker 1: here we go. Been listening for almost two years, guys,
51:44
Speaker 1: never missed an episode. I'm a former ultra marathon or
51:48
Speaker 1: typically in the fifty k distance, so definitely on the
51:51
Speaker 1: shorter end five thousand mile. Can you believe that a
51:54
Speaker 1: fifty k is a short one? Yeah? And I can
51:59
Speaker 1: speak to experience in both the runners high and hitting
52:02
Speaker 1: the wall in the same race. In two thousand thirteen,
52:05
Speaker 1: I was competing in my last fift k, and while
52:07
Speaker 1: I was towards the back of the pack of these
52:09
Speaker 1: events always, I was feeling great when I reached the
52:13
Speaker 1: four hour mark, laughing and joking with aid station volunteers
52:18
Speaker 1: and having a great time. I felt like I was
52:20
Speaker 1: on top of the world at mile twenty and then
52:23
Speaker 1: it happened. I hit the wall hard. I had been
52:27
Speaker 1: able to cover twenty miles a pretty rugged trail in
52:29
Speaker 1: four hours. Suddenly my legs went from feeling amazing and
52:32
Speaker 1: light feeling like sex of what submit that happens to me?
52:36
Speaker 1: At like mile point seven five? Uh? It took me
52:40
Speaker 1: another four hours in the final twelve miles of the race.
52:45
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time I start training for my next one. Guys,
52:47
Speaker 1: you're invited to join me. Maybe Chuck hats running because
52:50
Speaker 1: he hasn't found the right distance yet. Perhaps it's thirty
52:53
Speaker 1: two point five miles. Nope, Nope. That is from Sean
52:56
Speaker 1: Riley in Columbia, South Carolina. Shaw and Riley, who is crazy.
53:02
Speaker 1: But thanks for writing in short ones. Um. Yeah, but
53:06
Speaker 1: we should say there is quite a difference apparently, between
53:10
Speaker 1: pot High and the Runners High. Yes, no one said
53:13
Speaker 1: that there were anything alike. No, most people said they
53:15
Speaker 1: were pretty different. Okay, cool, So we're done with marathoning.
53:20
Speaker 1: No need to email us more about marathons. We're good,
53:23
Speaker 1: We got it. Okay. If you do have epilepsy or
53:27
Speaker 1: you know someone who does, though, I would love to
53:29
Speaker 1: hear from you and let us know what it's like
53:30
Speaker 1: to live with that. Um. If you want to get
53:33
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can go to our website
53:35
Speaker 1: it's called Stuff you Should Know dot com, and there
53:37
Speaker 1: you will find links to all of our social media accounts.
53:40
Speaker 1: Or you can send us a plain old fashioned email
53:43
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast How Stuff Works dot com. For more
53:51
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
53:53
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com