Seizures: What Causes Them?
A seizure or convulsion happens when there’s a burst of immediate, contradictory signals that come from the brain cells. Seizures, in general, can be caused by a lot of things, injuries, conditions, and many other factors. They are usually followed by temporary memory loss. Brain damage may also take place especially if the seizure is prolonged and severe.
Among the causes of seizures are:
• Abnormalities of the brain or in the person’s blood vessels
• Hardening of arteries
• Atherosclerosis
• Bleeding into the brain like:
• Brain tumors
• Subarachnoid hemorrhage
• Congenital diseases
• Chromosomal abnormalities
• Pregnancy
• High blood pressure
• Problems caused by stroke, pregnancy, and mini-stroke
Other contributing factors to the occurrence of seizures are diseases like:
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Advanced liver disease
• Epilepsy
• Dementia
• Hereditary diseases
• Ailments in the nervous system
• Infections that affect the brain such as:
• Encephalitis
• Bacterial meningitis
• Brain abscess
• Encephalitis
• Kidney failure like chronic renal failure
When it comes to injuries, the ones that may lead to seizures include injury in the person’s uterus, electrical injuries, and poisonous stings or insect bites. Head injuries, especially those that bring rapid, forceful impact to the brain tissue, also bring electrical disturbances that may cause seizures. Such injuries are oftentimes caused by car, motorcycle, or sports accidents.
Seizures may also happen if the person’s brain is deprived of oxygen particularly after drowning or choking accidents. Lack of oxygen during birth may also cause damage in the brain’s electrical system. Lead poisoning and problems in the baby’s brain development before birth cause seizures as well.
In children, the most known cause of seizures is high fever because increased temperature normally generates electrical disturbances in the person’s brain. The said condition is dubbed as febrile seizure or infantile spasm. Seizure activity can also be observed on infants who had trauma while being born. Another common cause of seizures in children below two years old are brief metabolic abnormalities including abnormal levels of calcium, glucose, vitamin B6, sodium, or magnesium in the blood.
Once the fever subsides or the abnormality is resolved, seizures will no longer be experienced. If seizures happen again without the above-mentioned triggers, then it is possible that they are caused by a birth defect, an injury while giving birth, eclampsia, brain disorder, or genetic metabolic irregularity. Tetanus can also cause seizures.
Moreover, temporary conditions like drug overdose and drug withdrawal may also lead to seizures. Among the popular seizure-causing drugs is crack cocaine. There are also cases when a problem or health condition that affects the brain’s nerve cells is inherited or passed down through families. When seizures are recurrent and have nothing to do with fever or known acute brain damage, the condition is called seizure disorder or epilepsy.
By Anders Eriksson
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