epilepsy

what is silent seizures or internal epilepsy?

[kay221]

Never heard of it. I found this on a web site but i dont know how reliable it is. "Silent seizures are ones where people go blank for a little while and they lose touch with their surroundings." Maybe its the same thing as absence seizures

"Absence seizures are brief episodes of staring. (Although the name looks like a regular English word, your neurologist may pronounce it ab-SAWNTZ.) Another name for them is petit mal (PET-ee mahl). During the seizure, awareness and responsiveness are impaired. People who have them usually don't realize when they've had one. There is no warning before a seizure, and the person is completely alert immediately afterward.

Simple absence seizures are just stares. Many absence seizures are considered complex absence seizures, which means that they include a change in muscle activity. The most common movements are eye blinks. Other movements include slight tasting movements of the mouth, hand movements such as rubbing the fingers together, and contraction or relaxation of the muscles. Complex absence seizures are often more than 10 seconds long."

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_absence

Wish you luck.

[jazz678]

Thanks very much for your help kay its so hard to find information on this in my local hospital they never heard of it so its hard to understand it all do you know if it is life threatening?

[kay221]

I dont think it is. Ive had absense seizures before and its basically like staring off into space for a little bit. That is assuming that absence and silent seizures are the same kind of thing. As long as your not doing anything that could be dangerous for anyone else such as driving. But if the seizure lasts for too long it can be dangerous, i think the cutoff time is more than 5 minutes. Or if the person were to lose consiousness and not regain it after a certain period of time. Or have several seizures one after another. I know that people use those standards for grand mal seizures but not sure about absense seizures so dont take my word for it. I just googled it and this is what I found.

"No deaths result directly from absence seizures. Accidents from driving or operating dangerous machinery during absence may result in death. In children with absence seizures due to secondary generalized epilepsies, death is related to the underlying disease.
The morbidity from typical absence seizures is related to the frequency and duration of the seizures, as well as to the patient's activities; effective treatment ameliorates these factors. Educational problems and behavioral problems are sequelae of unrecognized, frequent seizures."

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1183858-overview

[jazz678]

Thanks very much kay221 for taking the time to reply to me your information has been very helpful to me thanks.