LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Seizures / Epilepsy

Melatonin Shines Again for the Most Dangerous Seizures

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Seizures are very, very bad for the brain. Status epilepticus is the term for uncontrolled, unstoppable seizures.

Very often, these patients end up in the emergency room pumped full of sedatives just to stop the seizures. The damage to the brain under status epilepticus is even worse than that which occurs with single seizures.

Not to belittle the ongoing damage to is occurring in the brain of epileptics during the interictal (in between seizures) period. Few epileptics are educated on this little tidbit. Most fear the dreaded SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy), although the likelihood of any epileptic passing from SUDEP is very small.

The bottom line is that anything that can be done to protect the epileptic brain is a very good thing, whether having seizures or not. This is not to be confused with controlling seizures, since none of the anti-epileptic drugs actually work at protecting and improving brain health.
Which brings us to this particular study. While it is a mouse study, this is not the first time that research has demonstrated that melatonin can help to protect the brain.

In the study, researchers looked to see if melatonin could protect the brain during status epilepticus, arguably the worst-case scenario in an epileptic. Here’s what they found:

  • Melatonin use was able to reduce seizure activity
  • Melatonin reduced the brain cell damage in certain areas of the brain (CA1 area of the hippocampus and piriform cortex).
  • Melatonin decreased the hippocampal serotonin (5-HT) levels.

For something as simple as melatonin, these are some pretty important effects. As a brief primer, the pineal gland deep in the brain releases melatonin once sunlight stops hitting the eyes. Melatonin and serotonin are on the same metabolic pathway derived from the amino acid tryptophan. When sunlight is present, the pathway stops at serotonin. Once darkness arrives (and we are not exposed to blue light) the pathway continues to melatonin.

Interestingly, depression is closely associated with epilepsy. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the tryptophan to serotonin to melatonin pathway is somehow affected, making the supplementation of melatonin a very reasonable recommendation in any epileptic.

In our office, we start with .5 mg, a very small dose. Most patients mistakenly start themselves at much higher dosages.

Natural Remedies for Seizures Includes this Part of the Body

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Medications and more medications.  Maybe an electrical device implanted in your neck.  In the end, surgery.  This pretty much describes the medical treatment of epilepsy and migraines.

And, as a whole, this treatment paradigm sucks.  It does nothing to protect the brain, which should be the number one goal.  I should consider clarifying this by noting that it should be the number one goal after the seizures are under control, but only 30% or so of epileptic patients are able to achieve control of his or her seizures quickly with the first medication used.

There was a lengthy discussion recent on a Facebook epilepsy group page about SUDEP, or sudden unexplained death in epilepsy.  This particular discussion generated one of the largest numbers of comments that I have seen on the epilepsy topic.  It was largely driven by fear of SUDEP, the fear that it can strike any epileptic without warning and the fear that there is nothing that can be done to protect against it (not true, BTW, which was addressed in a prior article that can be read by clicking here).

And yet the risk of SUDEP is very low (about 1 in 1,000).  What epileptics do not seem to understand, or are not educated on by his or her treating physician, is that the underlying process leading to the seizures is slowly destroying the brain.  In every epileptic.  As in 1 in every 1.

THAT is where the fear would be justified.  If seizure patients had more concern over this slow, progressive brain damage, maybe there would be a much stronger push for ideas and changes to protect the brain.  Which would be a good thing because there are a lot of things that you can (and should) do to protect your brain.

There are so many things that can be done that I wrote a book on the topic called Migraines and Epilepsy: How to find relief, live well and protect your brain (which can be found on Amazon by clicking here).

This particular article addresses another aspect of this puzzle that I had not considered before, although it does make sense.  It has been well established that inflammation and oxidative stress play a role in both the onset and the severity of seizures.  There are a few areas of the body well-known to contribute to chronic inflammation because these areas are pockets of localized infection that continually stimulate the immune system and inflammation.

The mouth, when not properly cared for with good oral hygiene, is just such a place.  A cesspool of partying bacteria thumbing their collective noses at the immune system, while the immune systems fights in vain to control this type of chronic infection.  This is the kind of scenario that sets the stage for chronic inflammation and, since we have already established that chronic inflammation has been linked to seizures, it makes sense that periodontal health should be linked to seizures.

Of course, this is the kind of information that will likely never get shared with seizure patients and society will continue to think that if seizure management is strictly limited to medications.  Here ar e the details of the study:

  • When compared to a group without seizures, seizure patients were more likely to have bad oral hygiene, gingivitis and periodontitis
  • Seizure frequency was worse with bad oral hygiene, gingivitis and periodontal disease.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that brushing, flossing and tongue scraping can stop seizures, but clearly, based on this study, oral health is a must for all patients wanting better control of his or her seizures.

Natural Remedies for Seizures: Antioxidant Protection

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In my book, Migraines and Epilepsy, I review the evidence that shows that oxidative stress plays a huge role in seizures.  Because of this, antioxidants are a requirement in natural remedies for seizures.

This approach, however, is largely ignored by most of mainstream medicine.  Even at its surface, the extremely high level of brain cell activity during a seizure is going to cause lots and lots of oxidative damage.

For those of you not familiar with the term oxidative damage, this is a process that occurs when your body’s ability to protect itself from damaging compounds is exhausted.  These damaging compounds can come from outside of your body (environmental chemicals, poor quality diets, heavy metals, etc…) or can come from within your body (compounds naturally occurring when your brain cells produce needed energy).

Even before a seizure, there is a problem with the ability to produce energy in the brain.  This is part of the problem setting up the situation for epilepsy in the first place.  Once a seizure is triggered, there is a massive amount of activity in the brain.  All of this requires even more energy on top of a brain that is already WAY overtaxed.

The result is brain damage at the cellular level called oxidative stress.  Even after the seizure, the oxidative stress remains and can only be combated by targeted lifestyle changes and supplementation (which are outlined in my Migraines and Epilepsy book).

Just in case you have never heard this information from your neurologist or epileptologist and so I must be misinformed, I present this particular study.

In this study, researchers looked at the potential to use a simple saliva test in children with epilepsy.  Specifically, they compared the oxidative stress markers lactate dehydrogenase (LDH-an enzyme that converts lactate to pyruvate to make energy for our cells), MMP-9 (an enzyme that is believed to help protect the brain in times of stress) as well as 3 other markers of oxidative stress (peroxidase activity, superoxide dismutase activity and carbonyls) in normal children, children with controlled epilepsy and children with intractable epilepsy.  Here’s what they found:

  1. LDH concentrations were 38% lower in epileptic children and a whopping 76% lower in those with intractable epilepsy.
  2. Peroxidase activity was 6% higher in epileptic children and 10% higher in intractable seizures.
  3. SOD activity was 37% higher in children with seizures and 29% higher in the uncontrollable seizures.
  4. Carbonyls level were 59% higher in the epileptic group and 56% higher in intractable seizures.
  5. MMP 9 concentrations dropped by 12% in epileptic kids and 23% in intractable epilepsy.

So what does this technical jargon mean?

It means that, in epilepsy in general, and even more so as the seizures become harder and harder to control, these children are being bombarded at the cellular levels by damaging compounds.  The long-term risk of damage to their sensitive brains is great.

With more and more studies like these, it is becoming increasingly difficult for seizure specialists to ignore the background damage that is occurring in the brains of epilepsy patients.  With what we know, it is a requirement to have a discussion about reducing oxidative stress through eliminating toxic lifestyle habits as well as increasing the brain’s ability to protect itself through positive dietary choices and targeted supplementation.

Just merely attempting to control the seizures with medication is not enough.  Period.

 

Natural Remedies for Seizures: Stress Issues

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Stress kills us.  Luckily, it’s not a quick death, but rather a slow, agonizing death over the course of years.  But what does it do to your brain in the meantime?

It is clear that stress will fire off an epileptic seizure faster than just about anything else.  But is stress so damaging to the brain that it could actually cause epilepsy?  I’ve written in a previous blog post that those who were more physically active were less likely to develop epilepsy, so the idea that we can control our risk of developing epilepsy with the lifestyle choice we make is not unheard of.

Early life stress exposures to stress contributing to epilepsy is exactly the question that researchers asked in this particular study.  If we can protect our brain on the front end, the likelihood of even haven’t that first seizure if much reduced.  Once a first seizure is experienced, there is a possibility that a pathway through the brain cells gets created, making future seizures more likely.  This process is called epileptogenesis.

Back to the article.  In it, the author reviews the research that suggests that stress, when prolonged and severe, can cause epilepsy.  In addition, there are suggestions that early life stress can have the same effect on the development of epilepsy.

While this isn’t a clinical study with data to share, it should open up your mind to just how damaging stress is to your brain.  It destroys it.  Enough so that serious neurological disorders like chronic migraine headaches,  epilepsy, Alzheimer’s dementia and Parkinson’s disease have stress as a major contributor.

This means that if you have one of these conditions or have a parent with one of these conditions stress avoidance or at least management is even more important.  If your are a parent of a young child, this message is absolutely critical. You MUST manage stress in your life and teach your child the joys of life and shelter them from a stressful household.

Exercise, meditation, biofeedback, yoga, deep prayer, hypnosis or any other tool that feels right to you.  Today.

Slamming the Brakes on the Development of Epilepsy

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Two things can happen after someone’s very first seizure.  Nothing (preferable).  Or the beginning of dangerous changes in the brain.

The term that describes the descent from a first seizure into epilepsy is epileptogenesis.  There are some different theories as to what exactly happens that leads a previously healthy brain down the path of recurrent seizures.  Personally, I think that the oxidative stress generated from the seizure begins to destroy the ability of the brain to generate the energy it needs to function.  Essentially the brain cells become “sick.”  Since they were likely compromised in the first place, this makes it difficult for the epileptic patient to recover from without significant changes.

In other words–the lifestyle leading to poor brain health and the first seizure (stress, diet, environmental chemicals, sedentary lifestyles, etc…) is NOT going to be able to stop further degeneration in the brain cells.  It’s going to require an overhaul of lifestyle at this point–an approach only rarely broached by neurologists.

Another theory on epileptogenesis is that changes occur to the DNA as a result of an initial seizure.  As a quick background lesson, epigenetic changes are changes that occur, not to the DNA itself, but rather to the way DNA is accessed.  Consider it much like a program on your computer–the same program can be personalized to have a purple background with orange font or white on black; it just depends on how you decide you want the program to look.  It’s the same program either way.

In this model, after exposure to the initial seizure, the DNA of the brain cells begin to change in ways that make it more likely for future seizures to occur.  Brain cells are known to do this–the firing of one pathway in the brain makes it easier to follow this same pathway again.  Kind of like blazing a pathway or making a path.

This particular article delves into the concept of epigenetic changes leading to epilepsy.  While a little technical, the gist of the study (done on rats) was that the use of adenosine was able to stop the process of epileptogenesis for at least 90 days.  Adenosine is a molecule that helps to make up our DNA, but it also is a part of the all-important energy currency of our cells, ATP, produced in the mitochondria.

Overall, researchers were able to prove that providing adenosine directly to the region of the brain affected by that first seizure was able to halt the progression to epilepsy.  They believe this occurred by blocking the process called methylation involved in epigenetic modification of the DNA.  While powerful information, it is as of yet not applicable to humans, but opens up some powerful directions for researchers to take.

Interestingly, falling back onto MY personal theory, adenosine is an integral part of ATP (aka adenosine triphosphate) and levels of ATP are a major player in the proper functioning of brain cells.  It is possible that the adenosine used in this study is working by a different mechanism that affecting DNA methylation.  If this turns out to be the case, then lifestyle changes geared towards improving the health of the brian cells and increasing the amount of ATP in the brain cells may also play a role in derailing the progression to epilepsy.

Natural Remedies for Seizures: Is Epilepsy an Inflammatory Condition?

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The superficial understanding of epilepsy is that you have a region of brain cells that fire excessively, causing problems. If we can lock down the action of these cells, everything’s all good.

This is an incredibly simplistic view of seizures, but this is usually as far as most neurologists will get.  The entire effort of an epileptic patient is focused on controlling the seizures.  If this is successful (and, on the first shot, this happens only about 30% of the time) then everyone high-fives each other and pats each other on the back.

All of the anti-epileptic medications attempt to prevent a cell from firing in one way or another.  But, as I’ve certainly mentioned before, this does nothing to address what created the problem in the first place.  Why was this brain cell or region of brain cells “sick” to begin with?  To me, this should be the most critical question asked, yet rarely is.

My book, Migraines and Epilepsy, delves into the “why” question quite heavily.  Of critical importance is how effectively our brain cells can generate energy in the form of ATP (a process that occurs in the mitochondria—the powerhouse of the cell).  Anything that begins to disrupt the ability of the brain cell to generate the massive amount of energy that it requires to function normally is going to create a problem.

Inflammation can do just that.  It is a drag on the system, shifting needed resources to prepare to fight off some invader or other stressor.  In this particular study, the researchers looked for links between epilepsy and inflammation.

Specifically, they looked at several compounds produced by the body that are associated with inflammation, including:

  • Several interleukins (IL-6, IL6-sR, IL-1, IL-1RA and TNF-α,

In addition, since iron plays such a large role in inflammation (iron, when not attached to a hemoglobin molecule and carrying oxygen around, is a strong oxidizing agent—think rust), they looked as several markers of iron status and metabolism:

  • Hemoglobin concentration (Hgb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), hematocrit (Hct) red blood cell (RBC) count, serum iron and copper concentrations as well as several other markers looking at iron metabolism,

While all this sounds a little technical, the bottom line is that they were looking for whether or not inflammation was related to seizure severity and whether or not iron status was also related to seizure activity.

They looked at the interictal period (ictal = the time during a seizure, so “inter” ictal would be the period of time when a seizure was not occurring).  Seizures themselves create a great deal of inflammation to the brain during the ictal period, but by checking the interictal period, it is a much better reflection on what is going on in the epileptic’s physiology.

Overall, here’s what they found:

  1. There was an increase of IL-6 and a decrease of TNF-α in the epileptic patients.
  2. There were also changes in iron metabolism consistent with acute inflammation.
  3. Higher seizure frequencies were seen with higher eCp (a sign that inflammation levels were higher)
  4. Seizure frequency was also higher with lower Hgb and Hct (since these two compounds help deliver oxygen to the brain, lower levels would essentially starve the brain of oxygen and reduce the amount of energy brain cells could make),
  5. Those patients who had longer durations of epilepsy had lower levels of TNF-α.

Overall, while the results of this study are pretty detailed, the bottom line is that inflammation has a clear role to play in epilepsy.  Whether it is directly related or whether it is indirectly related by lowering the ability of red blood cells to deliver enough oxygen to the brain has yet to be seen.

What we can determine, however, is that anti-inflammatory lifestyles high in omega-3 and lower in omega-6, lower stress, unprocessed foods and contains exercise is going to have a strong benefit.  There have been studies on all these aspects, demonstrating that the better you take care of yourself, the less likely you are to have seizures.

Can Epilepsy be Prevented?

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Regardless of the condition, prevention is a world easier than a cure, although incredibly less dramatic.  But can seizures be prevented?

Many would think this is a pointless question.  The general consensus is that we know so little about what causes a seizure that we couldn’t possibly know enough to prevent to onset of epilepsy.  It is well established that things like a family history of seizures or prior head trauma can contribute to the onset of epilepsy, but these hardly fall under the category of deliberately preventable.

For myself, however, I firmly believe that we have a good grasp on what happens to the brain cells to produce seizures, enough so that I’ve written a book on the topic that focuses heavily on things that you can do to protect and heal your brain (which you can take a look at by clicking here).

Since exercise is so strongly protective to the brain, it would seem a good question to ask if exercise and cardiovascular fitness could play a role in preventing the development of epilepsy.  Which, ironically, is the topic of this particular article.  In it, researchers looked at over 1 million Swedish conscripts and followed them over the course of 40 years to look at this relationship.  Here’s what they found:

  1. Compared to those with the best cardiovascular fitness levels, those who had low cardiovascular fitness had a 79% higher risk of developing epilepsy.
  2. By the same comparison, medium cardiovascular fitness led to a 36% higher risk.

To put this in reverse terms, having a high level of cardiovascular fitness was strongly protective against the development of epilepsy.  This may seem like a stretch based on the average understanding of seizures, but when you look at how much good cardiovascular health plays a role in the optimal function of the brain, it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched.

Either way, there was a clear association, which adds further weight to the concept that we are strongly in control of what happens to our brains, from dementia to Alzheimer’s to migraines and seizures. For the migraineur or epileptic who has already crossed that line, the addition of exercise to your treatment regimen is not optional—it is an absolute requirement.

Chronic Migraines Headaches and Seizures Linked Again

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This is not the first time I’ve pointed out the links between migraines and seizures (as if my book, Migraines and Epilepsy wasn’t hint enough…) and it won’t be the last.

The reason I need to keep pointing it out is that mainstream medicine (neurologists included) don’t seem to see the association and consider them “comorbidities.”  Comorbidities mean that they are occurring simultaneously and not necessarily related.  Usually, comorbidities are medicated separately (because that’s how we “treat” everything in this country).  Take diabetes and high blood pressure.  Medicated separately.  Heart disease and colon cancer.  Separately.

In so many cases, these are not really separate conditions, but rather two conditions created by the same upstream event.  The prediabetic state increases blood pressure and high cholesterol.  The smart approach would be to make changes to address the prediabetes rather than medicating each of them.

Back to the migraine and epilepsy association.

There is strong evidence that both of these conditions are caused or greatly contributed to by a fundamental problem with the way the cells of the brain generate energy at the mitochondrial level.  You can read more about this in a previous article by clicking here.

This particular study looked at 304 epileptic patients to see just how many have headaches associated with the condition.  Here’s what they found:

  1. Those with more frequent seizures were 60% more likely to also experience headaches.
  2. Headaches were present in 66.1% of these epileptics.
  3. Chronic migraine headaches  were experienced by 32.9% of the patients,
  4. Tension-type headaches were  present in 9.2%.
  5. 6.6% had migraines that led into seizures.
  6. 10.2% had seizures that ended with migraines.

These are numbers that should make even the most skeptical neurologist sit up and take notice.  Worse, either condition, by themselves, is bad enough.  The amount of strain and oxidative damage to the brain that occurs during either a migraine or seizure is bad enough—the combination of the two is devastating.  And all the more reason to take up the mantle of protecting your brain and begin to make some serious lifestyle changes.