Weather and seizures

[Tralee A]

can the weather effect seizures?
it was really hot the last few days (32*C/94*F) and yesterday it was a bit hotter but i had a total of 5 abscence seizures. could they be related?

[BIGMAN131307]

Yes, it is very possible. Excessive heat or cold can cause some to have seizures.

[brain]

I cannot tolerate cold weather (or cold rooms)
and they can provoke seizures.

In addition barometric pressure suddenly
rising or dropping (not slow rising or slow dropping)
in the atmospheric conditions can cause seizure
problems, and that is a problematic issue for me

Some people cannot tolerate HEAT (just opposite
of me) as it's seizure provoking to them.

[BuckeyeFan]

Neither has ever caused me trouble, but both temperature and pressure can cause trouble for seizures. I believe we have several members who have trouble with heat as a trigger.

I think this has a lot to do with lowering our thresholds. Remember, most E triggers are related to the critical threshold that our bodies have for a particular stimulant or variable.

This is why some people experience a single seizure and then never have another. They are rarely diagnosed as having epilepsy, though something exceeded their threshold for that one time.

I think this is where some of the alternative therapies are finding success. They are addressing threshold levels of resistance to the triggers. The vast majority of the medications are addressing the spread of the misfiring cells after the first ones misfire.

This makes me wonder about our non-seizure symptoms. Do we still have seizures with medication and they just don't spread? Is this maybe the reason we get tired easily, become forgetful, etc ...?



sorry so long

[Kansas Educator]

Hmm.....Interesting. Heat has always bothered me and I never really thought about it being seizure related. However, I have had some of my "episodes" that came on when I was really hot. And, if I am in a room where I am too hot, I feel spacey and headachey so maybe my threshold is just high enough that I don't usually go into a full seizure. Wonder if anyone's done any research on this?

[TeeTees]

In a nutshell, yep. I'm a heat person - can't really tolerate it very well. When I'm on my holiday's abroad I tend to use a more 'mature' approach now, and just let the weather go....what can I do about it anyway ?.....but without good hydration, I think we're bound to be susceptible to having more seizure's during the hot-weather periods.

[epileric]

I don't find the temperature effects me as much as how overcast it is. I've found the more overcast it is the stronger & more frequent my seizures seem to be.

Not the best thing when living on the West Coast.