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Child Abuse and Epilepsy


Mike Fleming

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Does anyone know anything about this?  If there are any links to medical studies or anything?  

 

Epilepsy is often due to brain damage of some sort.  Sometimes it can come about because of a physical head injury, but what if it is the sort that is not due to a head injury?  It does seem, in some ways to be a like a super hyperactive fight or flight response where the brain just goes so hyper that the body "freaks out" and then the brain, at least in the more severe cases, shuts down and basically reboots.  Which is kind of what it feels like to be honest, after you've fallen unconscious and the episode is over, you wake up groggy and not knowing what's going on at all and it's like your consciousness gradually reasserts itself.

 

But this is something I've been wondering about for awhile now.   Just because epileptic fits, in my case at least, do seem a bit like a crazy over-the-top fight or flight response.  When child abuse damages the brain can it be what results in epilepsy or similar brain conditions?  I guess it wouldn't be conclusive but intuitively it seems like a fit to me.

 

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Does anyone know anything about this?  If there are any links to medical studies or anything?  

 

Epilepsy is often due to brain damage of some sort.  Sometimes it can come about because of a physical head injury, but what if it is the sort that is not due to a head injury?  It does seem, in some ways to be a like a super hyperactive fight or flight response where the brain just goes so hyper that the body "freaks out" and then the brain, at least in the more severe cases, shuts down and basically reboots.  Which is kind of what it feels like to be honest, after you've fallen unconscious and the episode is over, you wake up groggy and not knowing what's going on at all and it's like your consciousness gradually reasserts itself.

 

But this is something I've been wondering about for awhile now.   Just because epileptic fits, in my case at least, do seem a bit like a crazy over-the-top fight or flight response.  When child abuse damages the brain can it be what results in epilepsy or similar brain conditions?  I guess it wouldn't be conclusive but intuitively it seems like a fit to me.

Be careful. There is a lot of human phenomena that is NOT explained by child abuse. The human brain is extremely complicated, sometimes mistakes happens.

Just saying...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Does anyone know anything about this?  If there are any links to medical studies or anything?  

 

Epilepsy is often due to brain damage of some sort.  Sometimes it can come about because of a physical head injury, but what if it is the sort that is not due to a head injury?  It does seem, in some ways to be a like a super hyperactive fight or flight response where the brain just goes so hyper that the body "freaks out" and then the brain, at least in the more severe cases, shuts down and basically reboots.  Which is kind of what it feels like to be honest, after you've fallen unconscious and the episode is over, you wake up groggy and not knowing what's going on at all and it's like your consciousness gradually reasserts itself.

 

But this is something I've been wondering about for awhile now.   Just because epileptic fits, in my case at least, do seem a bit like a crazy over-the-top fight or flight response.  When child abuse damages the brain can it be what results in epilepsy or similar brain conditions?  I guess it wouldn't be conclusive but intuitively it seems like a fit to me.

Im sorry but epileptic seizures (brain damage and complete misfiring causing all sorts of physical effects including complete muscular seizure) have nothing to do with fight or flight (which is our natural response to life threatening danger, to fight the danger or flee from it)  One comes from brain damage/improperly formed brain matter.  Another comes from over stimulated response due to child abuse, thus making some stay on constant alert.  Unless you mean seizures coming from physical abuse, being a child physically abused to the point of brain damage?  Then I suppose its possible.  Otherwise I am not sure I see the connection.  Flight or fight VS Seizures are completely different in the origins, if we would try to find correlation.  

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Im sorry but epileptic seizures (brain damage and complete misfiring causing all sorts of physical effects including complete muscular seizure) have nothing to do with fight or flight (which is our natural response to life threatening danger, to fight the danger or flee from it)  One comes from brain damage/improperly formed brain matter.  Another comes from over stimulated response due to child abuse, thus making some stay on constant alert.  Unless you mean seizures coming from physical abuse, being a child physically abused to the point of brain damage?  Then I suppose its possible.  Otherwise I am not sure I see the connection.  Flight or fight VS Seizures are completely different in the origins, if we would try to find correlation.  

Don't worry, no need to think through the logic when you have studies showing the connection.  :)

 

Early-life stress includes prenatal, postnatal, and adolescence stress. Early-life stress can affect the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and cause cellular and molecular changes in the developing hippocampus that can result in neurobehavioral changes later in life. Epidemiological data implicate stress as a cause of seizures in both children and adults.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24574961

Stress affects the structure of the brain and cause seizures... not exactly overactive fight or flight, but right in line with what the OP was asking about.

 

It looks like there are quite a few studies on it so while "There is a lot of human phenomena that is NOT explained by child abuse"... it looks like epilepsy is NOT one of those  :P

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Don't worry, no need to think through the logic when you have studies showing the connection.  :)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24574961

Stress affects the structure of the brain and cause seizures... not exactly overactive fight or flight, but right in line with what the OP was asking about.

 

It looks like there are quite a few studies on it so while "There is a lot of human phenomena that is NOT explained by child abuse"... it looks like epilepsy is NOT one of those  :P

Thank you for pointing out the study.

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