Complex Partial Seizures and Abdominal Pain

All seizures are caused by abnormal electrical disturbances in the brain. Partial (focal) seizures occur when this electrical activity remains in a limited area of the brain. There are many symptoms and side-effects to complex partial seizures including, but not limited to, abdominal pain.

Classification

• Partial seizures are often called focal seizures as well, because they focus on only one part of the brain. The part of the brain that it is centered on depends on how the partial seizure is classified. They will be either simple partial seizures, or complex partial seizures. Simple partial seizures (SPS) are focused electrical attacks that do NOT affect the memory or awareness of the victim. Complex partial seizures (CPS) DO affect the awareness and memory of the event before, during and right after the seizure. Both affect the behavior of the patient. If the electrical impulses and activity that cause the seizures spread to the whole brain, they become generalized seizures and are then classified as secondary generalization.

Symptoms

• There are many symptoms of complex partial seizures. Wrongdiagnosis.com, for example, lists almost 50. Some of the more common are:

  Empty stare
  Lack of awareness of surroundings
  Altered consciousness
  Repetitive behavior such as smacking lips together
  Auditory hallucinations
  Visual hallucinations
  Inability to speak
  Inability to move
  Muscle jerking on one side of the body
  Muscle stiffening on one side of the body
  Abnormal uncontrollable muscle movements
  Abnormal uncontrollable eye movements
  Uncontrollable blinking
  and
  Abdominal pain and discomfort.

  All of these, including the abdominal pain are a result of where in the brain the electrical impulses are firing, and causing a disruption. Some patients may have none of the above listed, and some may have a vast number. Many people who have complex partial seizures start, however, with a simple partial seizure, also called an aura. This is a "warning seizure" and often includes an odd or uncomfortable feeling in the stomach. And while this is unrelated to the abdominal pain mentioned in the symptoms list, it can be misconstrued and confused for abdominal pain.

Causes

• There are many causes of seizures, especially complex partial seizures. Epilepsy.com lists some of these common causes:

  Infections
  Metabolic disorders
  Drugs
  Medications
  Poisons
  Disordered blood vessels
  Bleeding inside the brain
  Head injury
  Tumors

  But the website also says that in many of the people that get them, the cause is completely unknown.

Diagnosis

• While there are many causes for abdominal pain, complex partial seizures are an important cause to look at. If the patient has only abdominal pains, it is very likely to be something other than CPS that is causing it. However, if the patient suffers from the other symptoms listed above then action may need to be taken, and a diagnosis of CPS should be confirmed or ruled out. EEGs (Electroencephalograms) can be used for this purpose. Sensors are placed on the scalp and the victim's brainwaves are recorded. Once the person has a seizure, her brainwaves often appear abnormal, and can be ruled as a CPS or not. Cranial X-ray tests and cranial MRIs are often used in place of or in addition to the EEGs, to detect seizures. However, this testing isn't foolproof. Some patients, depending on the severity of their symptoms, may be misdiagnosed with a completely different and unrelated mental disorder such as schizophrenia, depression, attention-deficit disorder and manic depression. If the patient just stares off during their seizure, and little else, it's even been attributed to "daydreaming."

Treatment

• Treating the CPS and the abdominal pain depends mostly on the reason each of these is being caused. If there is no outward cause or at least a cause that can be easily identifiable by the patient's physician, then he may opt to simply cure the symptoms of the CPS, as opposed to the CPS. However, if the cause for the CPS is known, they may try to stop the seizures and the abdominal pain at its source. Either way, often times doctors give anti-seizure medications to the patients. Surgery on the temporal lobe is also an option (which is where most of the CPS are localized), as well as Vagus Nerve Stimulation, which, according to wrongdiagnosis.com, is a "minimally invasive surgery to send electrical impulses to the brain from an electrode connected to the left vagus nerve in the neck."