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epileptic seizure

Did Your Neurologist Recommend Natural Remedies for Seizures?

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Seizures will impact your life.  Period.  Uncontrollable, or refractory, seizures can destroy it.

I have certainly covered non-pharmacological therapies for seizures in past blog articles.  The list of things known to help improve brain health in seizure patients is quite long.  If you’d like to read through past blog articles on these approaches you can begin by clicking here.

How many of these approaches has your neurologist discussed with you?

If the answer is “none,” then it’s probably time to find a new one.

In the meantime, we can add to the list of things that are good for your brain and subsequently, your seizures.  This particular article reviews the power of exercise as an adjunct to the treatment of seizures.  I remember a colleague telling me about a friend who had a Boston terrier who was epileptic.  The owner found that, by throwing the dog on the treadmill every day, the dog remained seizure free.

Even if you’re not a canine, exercise has multiple benefits to seizure patients:

  1. Many anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) will cause low bone loss.  Exercise can help counteract this bone loss.
  2. Stress is devastating to the brain and will increase seizure risk.  Exercise can clearly reduce stress levels.  This may be the most powerful effect of exercise.
  3. The Bhadori Leanness program consists of a short fast combined with exercise and has been suggested as a strong neuroprotective approach.

Overall, it is clear that exercise needs to be a critical part of the care plan for any patient with seizures.  I have written frequently on the benefits of short burst aerobic exercise.  You can read more about these this type of approach by clicking here.

Here’s the beauty.  There is no interaction between any anti-epiliptic drug and exercise, with the exception of an increased risk of falls from the imbalance from some of the medications.  So, if you’re not already exercising, what are you waiting for?

Natural Remedies for Seizures That Don’t Respond to Medications

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For those of you not familiar with the jargon, a refractory seizure is one that does not respond to medication.

Unfortunately, this is not a tiny fraction of epileptics.  Rather, upwards of 1/3 of epileptics have seizures that do not respond to any medication that is used.  The options that mainstream medicine have at this point are not pleasant.  Vagal nerve stimulators embedded in your neck.  Surgery to remove a part of your brain.  Or, just deal with it.

The impact on the lives of these patients is severe.  Restricted driving, inability to work and social isolation can be the result.

However, I have long felt that mainstream medicine’s approach to seizures is an inherently faulty one.  In almost all cases, the initial, and sometimes only, goal is to use medication to control the seizure.  If this doesn’t work, a different medication is used or they are used in combination.  Statistically, if the first doesn’t work at controlling your seizures, the likelihood of being able to control your seizures with medication just goes down from there.

But there is rarely the thought to heal the brain and restore the way it is supposed to function.  The medications do not do this (in some cases it is actually worsening brain cell function), rather, they are designed to keep one sick brain cell from communicating with its neighbor.  Ramp up the suppression strong enough and hopefully you can stop the seizures.  But you haven’t fixed the sick neuron that started the mess in the first place.

Which brings us to this particular article.

My book, Migraines and Epilepsy, How to Find Relief, Live Well and Protect Your Brian, has a strong focus on the mitochondrial aspect of both migraines and epilepsy.  In a nutshell, when your brain cells cannot produce the energy they need to function optimally, things break down.  Chronic migraine headaches and seizures can result.  While it’s not that simple, this is the basic concept.

When you understand the mitochondria and the role it plays, you can better understand the factors that contribute to migraines and seizures as well as the natural remedies for seizures and migraines that improve brain cell function.

As mentioned by the author, treatments geared towards improving energy needs of the brain cells are “untapped.”  This is probably an understatement, but you begin to see the point.

Overall, by NOT looking at natural remedies for seizures and migraines, researchers have might have missed out on therapies that are more effective and far safer than current medications.  The difference is that this type of an approach to treatment works on healing the brain at it’s most fundamental level–the energy needs of the cell.

Stay tuned…

Migraine Headaches and Seizures Linked

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I have stated for years that the causes of chronic migraine headaches and epilepsy are the same. While not generally accepted, it is consistent with current research.

The finding of a genetic link between migraines and epilepsy have been all over the news since this article hit the mainstream media earlier this month.  I have had a standing Google alert for “migraines and epilepsy” for quite some time now.  Nothing was on the radar screen on the Internet until this study hit.

For those of you who know, I have a particularly strong interest in migraines and epilepsy and have spent the past 6-7 years working on my book, “Migraines and Epilepsy: You Are Not Alone.”  During the writing of this book, it has been very common for me to be asked about the combination of the two conditions, because they are not generally thought of in the same sentence.  This includes most specialists dealing with epilepsy and with migraines.

However, the underlying problem with both of these conditions are very, very similar and this particular study lends weight to this concept.

Basically, researchers looked for families that had several epileptics in the family so they could basically single out a family with a strong genetic predisposition to seizures.  Seizures don’t always run strongly in families, so this was the researchers way to kind of “narrow the pool” so to speak.  They then looked at the presence of migraine with aura within these families and found a definite link between the two (Tweet this).

So what does this really mean?  When I think genetics traits, I think of enzymes, because genetic uniquenesses that change the speed of how an enzyme runs is the most common difference or commonality in conditions that run in families (this is called a single nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP for short).  With a genetic link between migraines and epilepsy, I can clearly envision an enzyme that affects how our cells generate energy (the technical term would be SNPs present that affect the mitochondrial energetic pathway).

If several family members have problems generating energy for the brain cells, this can result in different outcomes along the same path.  In one family member it produces a seizure disorder.  In another family member a migraine with aura.

My hope for this study is that we don’t view these as “comorbidites,” meaning that these two conditions just happen to coexist but don’t have much relationship to each other (like high triglyerides and high blood pressure).  Rather, we need to view these two conditions as having the same basic problem, but with a different outcome depending upon the individual.

As an example, (and a bad one, but it’s close to bedtime as I write this) consider stress.  People under extreme levels of stress may experience different outcomes.  Stroke in one, heart attack in another.  And cancer in a third.  All stemming from the same problem, but leading to different outcomes dependent upon uniqueness’s present within the individual’s makeup.

Overall, this post was designed less to educate and more to inform.  If you are a migraine headache sufferer or someone who experiences seizures, pay attention to things that you may learn that help the other condition–it may benefit you as well.

Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy: Lower Your Risk

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While just dealing with seizures is bad enough, the mind of every epileptic there looms the fear of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy, also known as SUDEP.

The exact cause of SUDEP has not been identified, although cardiac problems are very high on the list of likely suspects.

This should not come as a surprise since, at the cellular level, the way our heart cell develops the rhythm of our heartbeat is similar to the way our brain cells fire.  It all has to do with boring topics like cellular membrane potential and voltage gated channels.  (I usually save these topics for blogs focusing on insomnia…)

There are risk factors for sudden unexplained death in epilepsy that we already know and understand.  Some risk factors, such as living alone will increase the risk of SUDEP.  Some studies have suggested that the anti-epileptic drugs themselves affect heart rhythm and increase the risk of SUDEP.

Obviously, doing everything you can to improve brain health in epilepsy should be the most important factor in management of seizures.  Without appropriate lifestyle changes targeted towards brain health, even seizures successfully controlled with medication are missing the real problem.

Chronic epilepsy and seizures are the result of something being wrong in the brain.  Most evidence points to the mitochondria and the ability of brain cells to generate the energy they need to function properly as causative in seizures.

Overall, because of this, SUDEP is a valid concern, but the incidence still remains low.  The progression of damage to the brain, however, is occurring in every epileptic.  This is why the concern should be on brain health rather than concern over sudden unexplained death.

Should you STILL be worried, this particular study provides some additional help.

Get a pet.

Yup.  It can be that simple.  Researchers looked at the rate of SUDEP in a group of 1092 epileptics and looked at those who had succumbed to SUDEP.  1% (11) were classified as SUDEP.  Not a single one of these were pet owners.

On the other hand, in the remaining epileptics, 61% were-pet owners.

While this is not conclusive by any means, it fits with what we’ve seen in other studies on the heart protection that occurs with pet owners who have chronic conditions.

As an avid dog lover, it would seem a simple tool to add to the toolbox of improving your brain health and improving your chances of a long and healthy life.

What  have you done to help heal your brain today?