How to Know If You Have 'Abdominal Epilepsy' Or Autonomic Seizure

Not every type of epilepsy is generalized. A person could have seizure activity without impairment of his consciousness. There is an entity called "simple partial seizures" that results from epileptic activity in a small portion of the brain. People experiencing a simple partial seizure can behave normally during seizures. Simple partial seizures have many types but I will only discuss the one in which people have repeated and unexplained episodes of abdominal symptoms. This type of partial seizures is also called autonomic seizures or abdominal seizures because it involves the autonomic nervous system (ANS) of the brain. ANS controls many dynamic functions of the human body such as heart rate, gut motility, sexual functions, maintaining blood pressure while in motion, urination, sweating, tear flow, fear reaction and more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Knowledge
• Observation
• Physician
• Neurologist
• EEG

1. Abdominal discomfort, nausea with "epigastric rising" (sensation of symptoms rising to the throat from the abdomen).
2. Stomach pain, vomiting, hearing bowel noise due to gas moving in the intestines, belching and flatulence.
3. Other symptoms may include pallor, flushing, sweating, goose bumps with hair standing on end, dilated pupils, increase in heart and respiration rates and frequent urination.
4. A few people may get penile erection, sexual arousal even orgasm.
5. Labs:
   
   The gold standard test is EEG (Electro Encephalogram). This is the EKG equivalent of brain. Small electrodes are placed over certain areas of the brain and electrical activity is recorded. Diagnosis is made by finding abnormal brain waves in the tracings.
   
   CT and MRI head may also be ordered to eliminate physical causes of seizures such as a brain tumors or stroke