A very touching story..An age long misconception of Epilepsy by Dr Tayo Abiara

                                         

    " WARAPA, AKWUKWU"..... An age long misconception by Dr. Tayo Abiara.

       On a busy street in Lagos, Nigeria a young beautiful lady is walking down the street , carrying a tray full of oranges she has painstakingly peeled, carefully arranged and  set out to hawk for the day, her only means of livelihood .

The balancing act of holding the tray on her head , a sight to behold by those not used to the African way of women carrying objects on their head .

Suddenly she falls to the ground with all the oranges scattered around , she begins to roll on the ground ,her body making uncontrollable  fits and  jerky movements , her eyes rolling , her tongue is out , saliva drooling , tinge of blood coming from her mouth , she has obviously bitten her tongue.
After about five minutes, the uncontrollable  movement stops, her body goes limp .
She lays flaccid on the ground . 

Couple of minutes later , she slowly stands up gathers her tray, too embarrassed to pick any of her oranges and starts to walk back home in shame .

While all this episode lasted , despite being on a busy street , no one moved close to her to offer this poor girl any help or assistance.

As a matter of fact they all move far away from her making sure no part of her touched them .

It is not that the people around her are devoid of human compassion that debars them from offering help to this poor girl, neither is it that they do not know what is happening to her .
What has debarred them from moving close to her or offering her any assistance is a false age long misconception of the ailment affecting this girl . 

A misconception I also had before my medical training, an age long misconception passed down from generations .

This young girl like millions of people all over the world suffers from Seizures or Epilepsy.
In my traditional Yoruba language it's called "WARAPA" or AKWUKWU in Igbo language ..
There is a false belief amongst my people that it's a contagious disease , that once you move close to anyone with such an ailment and their saliva touches anyone, that person also becomes afflicted with the disease. 

Some actually believe it has something to do with touching lizards .
This false belief has led to stigmatization of the people with this disease, thereby causing them untold suffering , hardship and sometimes even death . 

I will attempt to shed light on this disease in a very simple way that can easily be understood by all.
Let us assume that all parts of our body has a control box like the switch box we have at our homes , that contains switches that controls different electrical switches in different rooms in our house .
Our brain is that main switch box . Our body parts , arms, legs, eyes , mouth etc are the different rooms . 

Let us now assume each of those switches in the main switch box which is our brain is discharging at 10 volts .
So each room , which is our body parts is receiving 10 volts each from our brain the main switch box and that is what we use to make normal movements .

In people with epilepsy or seizure what happens is that a specific switch in the brain controlling a certain part of the body suddenly begins to fire at about 10,000 volts rather than the normal 10 volts .
We can imagine how fast that body part will be moving . Sometimes it affects all the Switches in the mainbox ( brain) , then the whole body goes into uncontrollable fits and jerky movements we see in these people during the episodes .

The muscles in their mouth are also moving uncontrollably , they may bite their tongue in the process , the saliva is produced at a higher rate .
As we can see , there is nothing different in the saliva they produce in this state from ours or any normal person . 

Neither is it infectious or contagious by any means .
Some may even lose control of urinary or fecal continence .
The reason why they cannot stand up immediately after the seizure is because, they are very very tired and worn out , it's like someone who has run a marathon race.
The amount of voltage discharged to them from their brain is almost equal to that of someone who has been running for almost 5 hours .

What causes this abnormality in the brain ?
Sometimes it's just an imperfection in the way some people were created , just like some of us were created with high blood pressure , diabetes or poor eyesight. 

In some , it could be due to a previous accident that affected the brain.
So many reasons could account for it. Full explanation of various causes is certainly beyond the scope of this writing .

We see it in children from the age of 6 months to 6 years . This is what the Yoruba's call "Giri" or "Ife odudo" in Igbo language. 

In this case it's mostly caused by Fever and bringing the fever down stops it most times and it doesn't mean such children will grow up to develop seizures as adults .

Let us try to jettison our old misconceptions . Let us try to move close to these individuals and offer them assistance when we see them in this situation .
Let's move close to them and remove any object that can hurt them around them .
Let us position them in a way that they can make breathe easily .
Let us call for emergency services or take them to the hospital .
Moving close to them and showing we care and showing love goes a long way for the psychological well being of  these people .
Definitely nobody stand any risk of contacting this ailment by touching such individuals .

People with Epilepsy or Seizures can lead a very normal life , once they are placed on medications and taking it regularly . 

The purpose of writing this is not to give a scientific lecture on neurology .
Rather it's to shine light on a misconception that has far too long affected us , from reacting in a compassionate way towards a common occurrence that is affecting the lives of a lot of people in our society . 

Let us stop the stigmatisation of those suffering from epilepsy. Our love and care will go a long way to relief them the suffering and trauma they usually go through.