EPILEPSY: WHEN NEURONS MISFIRE

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EPILEPSY WHEN NEURONS MISFIRE By Dale
Short For Karen, it begins with the sensation
of a roller-coaster ride--her stomach seeming to
rise suddenly into her throat as if she's on a
steep downhill run, even though she's standing on
a level sidewalk at the time. For Duane, it
starts with the overpowering scent of dry leaves
burning in autumn, even if he's walking through a
green field on a warm spring day. But what comes
next for both of them, and for the 40 million
other people worldwide who suffer from the
disorder, is dramatically similar twitching or
convulsions, the sense of being dissociated from
their surroundings, and perhaps a blackout that
can last seconds or minutes--the hallmarks of an
epileptic seizure. The tiny electrical glitches
in the brain that cause epilepsy can have
devastating effects on patients' lives. Even as
recently as the 1950s, more than a dozen states
in this country still had laws that prevented
people with epilepsy from marrying. Up until the
1970s, restaurants and other public enterprises
had the right to prevent them from even entering
the premises.
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Though drugs are still one of the most effective
means of treating epilepsy, many of them haven't
lived up to their earlier promise. Advances in
surgical techniques are another promising arena.
Neurologist Frank Gilliam, who directs the UAB
Epilepsy Center's surgical outcomes program, says
that more than 500 patients have undergone
surgery at the center, with a success rate that
puts UAB among the best in the world. One of the
program's many success stories is Duane Campbell
of Atlanta, the man who smelled dry leaves from
nowhere. He had been diagnosed as having epilepsy
10 years earlier, at the age of 19, when he
suffered a major, or grand mal, seizure on
Halloween night and ended up at his local
emergency department. In the years that
followed, Campbell recalls, his physicians "tried
about every drug in the book" to reduce his
seizures. None of the medications helped, and
some actually made his symptoms worse. At one
point, he was having as many as 20 episodes a
day. "It got to where my whole life was
controlled by waiting for a seizure," Campbell
says. "I'd wonder, 'Will it happen while I'm
going down these stairs? Will it happen while I'm
holding my baby?'"
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By chance, one of his doctors met UAB
neurosurgeon Ruben Kuzniecky at a medical seminar
and described Campbell's condition. Kuzniecky
told him that UAB might be able to help, and
Campbell was referred here. Five years after
Campbell's surgery, he's still free of seizures.
For the past five months, he's been
medication-free as well. "My life is nothing
like it was 10 years ago," he says now, in an
interview at his Georgia home. "I tell people
about my condition whenever I can because I'm
thinking there may be another Duane Campbell out
there, in the same fix I was in, believing that
there's no hope. "That's one of my main goals
now--letting other epilepsy patients know what's
been done for me and the difference it's made in
my life."
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Anne Lamott
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John Grisham
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William Goyen
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