It has been 2 years since my daughter, Amor, experienced major seizures. She used to get major drop-on-the-floor, lose consciousness and shake uncontrollably for almost 3 minutes. These used to happen monthly once she hit puberty.
But those hard days are over! We asked her doctor for an Electroencephalography (EEG). After the test, he said he was happy to see that her brain waves were “clean.” There were minor sparks that lasted less than one second but had no outward manifestation. That is far from her previous 3-minute seizures.
Despite great progress, the neurologist urged me again to medicate my daughter. He said that medication is the most effective way of controlling seizures. I guess that’s his job and that’s his expertise.
But looking back we were battling seizures for a number of years and learned a lot along the way. We learned what was triggering them, what decreased her seizure threshold, what nutrients support the brain, what activities make the brain susceptive to seizures, and what activities built up resistance against seizures.
In time we saw decreasing seizures in terms of intensity and frequency. In the end, we found our list of what helps and a list of what we should avoid to ensure we remain on this seizure-free path.
Again, I ran the different scenarios and reasons why I will confidently stick to my decision. And again, I am fully convinced that we are on the best path toward better health.
Pros and Cons of Medication
Pros
- Seizures may be controlled.
- We may be able to loosen her diet.
Cons
- May not control the seizure. Amor’s condition, catamenial epilepsy, i.e. seizures triggered by menstrual/hormonally changes, is less likely to be controlled by anti-seizure medication. This s well documented in scientific studies (Atalar & Baykan, 2022, Kandeepan & Shaaban, 2016, Reddy, 2016). Also, a good number of women in catamenial epilepsy forums express frustration about not being able to control their seizures with medication.
- Burden liver and reduces seizure threshold. Anti-seizure medications, like many drugs, burden the liver. The liver is in charge of cleaning out waste by-products of drugs as well as food. A burdened liver will have a harder time detoxifying and cleaning out natural substances that influence seizure thresholds. In Amor’s example, her seizures are triggered by excess estrogen. The liver is one of the major organs responsible for breaking down estrogen before it is cleared out through the bowel.
- Nutrient imbalance. One strong reason why I do not want to medicate is because we have done that before. Amor used to be on the anti-epilepsy medication, valproic acid from age 4 to 7. It was only after my research about vitamin B6 supporting the drug, that the doctor prescribed vitamin B6. A study of brain injury in rats was induced by the same drug I gave my daughter to protect her brain from seizures. The drug increased inflammation and oxidation and reduced the rat’s ability to make antioxidants. Vitamin B6 reversed the drug-induced brain injury (Turkyilmaz et al., 2021). If I had not researched, nobody would have prescribed vitamin B6 for my young daughter. What I was not able to find was that valproic acid use in epileptic children was correlated to reduced vitamin D levels (Abdullah & Mousheer, 2020). Vitamin D plays an important role in our immune system (Athanassiou et al. 2022). Anecdotally, in the years when Amor was on valproic acid, her immune system was down. Before medication, she used to be able to fight off a fever overnight. With medication, she couldn’t even get rid of common colds for 2 weeks and was always absent from school.
- Seizure trigger not eliminated. If seizures can be controlled by medication and we loosen Amor’s diet, it is tantamount to giving her the seizure trigger and masking the effect with medication. Is that real health? Even seizures controlled by medication can relapse. If the medication is re-administered after the relapse of seizures, it becomes very difficult, even impossible to control (Atalar & Baykan 2022). In my opinion, root cause or elimination of seizure triggers is a better option.
Pros and Cons of Changing Diet and Lifestyle
Pros
- Zero seizures. If seizures are removed by identification and removal of triggers, then she actually has no seizures and is not brain disturbance masked by medication.
- Long-term protection. If seizure triggers are well understood and removed or properly managed, then logically, the likelihood of seizure relapse is small or nil.
- Prevent other ailments. Starting a healthy diet and lifestyle at her very young age of 17-years-old, and continuing with the diet and lifestyle means Amor can avoid many age-, diet- and lifestyle-related diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart conditions. These conditions run in the family, but diet and lifestyle reduce the probability of inheriting them. Amor was born premature, has special needs, and may have genetic reasons for her seizures. Nevertheless, appropriate diet and lifestyle give her better chances of living to the fullest of health.
- Healthy liver. Liver will not be burdened by medication. That helps her detoxification, it helps her hormones, which in turn helps reduce or even eliminate potential for seizures.
- Vitamin and mineral status won’t be affected. Certain vitamins and minerals are usually affected/depleted by anti-seizure medication. Examples of which are vitamin B6 and magnesium. Ironically, vitamin B6 and magnesium play important roles in seizure prevention (Ohtahara et al., 2011 and Osborn et al., 2016)
Cons
1. Keeping a strict diet and lifestyle may be difficult, but worth the benefits.
References
Abdullah, A. T., & Mousheer, Z. T. (2020). Vitamin D Status in Epileptic Children on Valproic Acid; a Case-Control Study. Archives of academic emergency medicine, 8(1), e13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7130439/
Atalar, A. Ç., & Baykan, B. (2022). Different Prognostic Patterns in Epilepsies and Considerations About the Denotations of Atypical Patterns. Noro psikiyatri arsivi, 59(1), 68–76. https://doi.org/10.29399/npa.27976
Athanassiou, L., Mavragani, C. P., & Koutsilieris, M. (2022). The Immunomodulatory Properties of Vitamin D. Mediterranean journal of rheumatology, 33(1), 7–13. https://doi.org/10.31138/mjr.33.1.7
Kandeepan, J., & Shaaban, J. (2016). Catamenial epilepsy: A missed cause of refractory seizure in young women. Malaysian family physician : the official journal of the Academy of Family Physicians of Malaysia, 11(2-3), 24–26. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28461855/
Ohtahara, S., Yamatogi, Y., & Ohtsuka, Y. (2011). Vitamin B(6) treatment of intractable seizures. Brain & development, 33(9), 783–789. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.braindev.2011.01.010
Osborn, K. E., Shytle, R. D., Frontera, A. T., Soble, J. R., & Schoenberg, M. R. (2016). Addressing potential role of magnesium dyshomeostasis to improve treatment efficacy for epilepsy: A reexamination of the literature. Journal of clinical pharmacology, 56(3), 260–265. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcph.626
Reddy D. S. (2016). Catamenial Epilepsy: Discovery of an Extrasynaptic Molecular Mechanism for Targeted Therapy. Frontiers in cellular neuroscience, 10, 101. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2016.00101
Turkyilmaz, I. B., Altas, N., Arisan, I., & Yanardag, R. (2021). Effect of vitamin B6 on brain damage in valproic acid induced toxicity. Journal of biochemical and molecular toxicology, 35(9), e22855. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbt.22855
