Priynka is a 31-year-old graduate student and single mother.
"It is absolutely terrifying feeling to loose control of my body"
Her Complaint
Priyanka's friend took her to the emergency room for uncontrollable jerking movements of her left arm and abdomen that lasted about an hour. While walking to the registration desk, Priyanka suddenly lost consciousness, fell to the ground. Subsequently, her whole body jerked and twisted on the floor.
One hour later, Priyanka became aware of her surroundings and complained of left-sided arm and shoulder pain.
What She Learned
Priyanka has a neurological condition called epilepsy. Therefore, she suffered from bouts of uncontrolled electrical activity in her brain. The chaotic electrical activity could potentially start in one part of the brain and then spread to involve other areas or start all at once in different brain areas.
This explosive neural activity in women with seizure cause loss of muscle control and uncontrolled muscle contractions called convulsions. Currently, 30–40% of the 50 million affected people being women of childbearing age.
Epilepsy affects approximately 50 million people in the world. Thirty to forty percent of people with epilepsy are women in the childbearing years.
A worldwide dilemma
Millions of women worldwide suffer from epilepsy, Often the pain burden, the sacrifices and the surround life changes in women's lives with this neurological disorder go unrecognized by doctors and community members. Most distressing is that women like Priyanka, live their lives in distress due to the fear of not knowing when a seizure will strike.
Her Plan
Priyanka agreed to take anti-seizure, or anti-epileptic, medications to help reduce the chance of recurrent seizure episodes. She was also guided to organize her life into daily routines and decrease variables in her life, such as stressors and sleep patterns, while ensuring safety measures like not driving, not bathing alone and avoiding climbing heights.
Your Brain Doctor® helped Priyanka rewind and identify her physiological factors that contributed to her recurrent seizures in order to increase her control variations in her nervous system and environment.
- She tracked her menstrual cycle and her food intake to find any correlations between her internal physiology and her seizure events.
- She learned about taking essential precautions to protect herself from injuries in the event of a seizure event, and what she could do to reduce a seizure event.
- She developed a plan to change her nutrition to fortify her brain and nerves.
- She gained advocacy from experts and from women with her similar health challenges.
