Epilepsy Awareness Month: Epilepsy Facts

November is Epilepsy Awareness month. I want to do as much as I possibly can to help support and spread Awareness of this misunderstood and often misdiagnosed disorder. I will blog about Epilepsy this month to give you information that you probably don't know.



I will also have specials in my shop every day. I will be drastically reducing the price of one purple item for 24 hours. Check back every day to see when your favorite is on sale.

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Epilepsy is sometimes referred to as a "storm in the brain" and that is a pretty good description. Epilepsy is a disorder characterized by episodes of greatly increased neural activity in the brain. During a seizure, a person may experience strange sensations and emotions, convulsions, muscle spasms, and loss of consciousness. Neurons may emit signals as many as 500 times a second during these episodes, much faster than the normal rate of about 80 times a second. that is over 6 times the normal rate. Basically, the electrical activity in your brain goes into maximum overdrive. That's why most people fall into a very deep sleep after a seizure. Their brain has just run a marathon.

Now for some facts and figures:

About 1 in 100 people in the US have experienced seizures or have been diagnosed with epilepsy. If you know more than 100 people chances are that you know someone with epilepsy.

There are more than 40 different kinds of seizures. Hundreds of different epilepsy syndromes (disorders characterized by a specific set of symptoms) have been identified.

Currently available treatments can control seizures at least some of the time in about 80% of persons with epilepsy. However, about 600,000 persons with epilepsy in the United States have intractable seizures, and another 400,000 receive inadequate relief from available treatments.

Here are links to a few good sites that I use regularly for information:

https://www.cureepilepsy.org/

http://www.talkaboutit.org/

http://www.epilepsyadvocate.com/

http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/