Since many years ago, post-traumatic epileptic seizures have been directly linked to mild, medium, and serious brain damage, according to medical knowledge. PTE is seen as “dose dependent,” which means that the severity of the head injury affects how likely someone is to acquire PTE. Make sure to contact a Los Angeles brain injury attorney if you have been through any kind of accident.
How does it lead to epilepsy?
The first week after a head injury, seizures usually start to occur; these are known as “short” seizures since they happen so soon after the head injury. On the other hand, “long” seizures are those that happen from 30 days following a brain injury to many years later.
The very first 2 years after a mild, moderate, or severe brain injury are when “long” seizures most frequently occur.
The severity of a seizure can vary, from a very mild “déjà vu”-like experience in which one somehow does not lose consciousness but has trouble remembering recent events to a full-blown seizure that causes unconsciousness, loss of bowel control, clenching of the teeth, and other unfavorable physical side effects.
Given this, do not assume that seizures you experience months or even decades after a brain injury are unrelated to the injury if you experienced them. You may have had head trauma and not experienced any seizures in the first week.
Numerous medical investigations have provided the reasons why this happens. An imbalance of neurochemicals in the brain results from brain damage. The brain’s response to experiencing stress and way of attempting to control brain damage is known as the “metabolic cascade.” In order to try and isolate the damaged brain tissue from the normal brain cells, the brain releases specific neurochemicals. Because our awareness depends on a fine balance between chemical switches in the brain that permit brain cells to activate and others that prevent such activity, it does this.
To put it another way, if the neurons fire excessively or uncontrollably, it might spread to various brain lobes and develop into a seizure. The brain is effectively defending itself from this happening by attempting to seal off the injured area.
The neurochemical balance can occasionally become unbalanced, and this can lead to an excess of particular trauma-related metabolites in the brain, which can then set off a cascading event of overactive brain cells and cause a seizure. This is why seizures develop months or years later after the initial head trauma.
Do not assume that brain damage and later seizures that occurred at some time after the injury are unrelated; they most certainly are. It is crucial to work with a law company that is aware of the link between head traumas and PTE.
