New triggers...

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skyfire322

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Hey y'all! I have a question when it comes to new triggers. I'm a pretty avid gamer, and I've never had issues like this before. Since my onslaught of five seizures over the past week, I begin to get dizzy, nauseous and very faint auras whenever I play more than five minutes.

Obviously, I have stopped because I don't want another one, but is it common to get new triggers, especially after having so many seizures in such a short amount of time?
 
Yes, it's common to get new triggers, even if the seizures don't occur rapidly and close together. My initial triggers were low blood sugar, fatigue, and aspartame. I thought as long as was very careful and avoided those things, I wouldn't have any seizures. But then they began occurring unpredictably -- even if wasn't tired and hungry, even if I avoided aspartame.
 
I vaguely recall at some point being told by a brilliant ER doctor, somewhere, sometime, or something, (I must have been postictal or psychotic and woozy still) that the sodium channels in the brain that are involved in seizures could be comparable to a very tall Jenga game - and seizures are like losing at Jenga - the tower falls - but the seizure doesn't "fall", it activates a chain reaction in the sodium channel - but with seizures the Jenga game goes on because it's so tall (not to indicate that the sodium channels are "tall" per se, but just to act as a comparison) - and that after the first "Jenga" it makes the tower more prone to have more "Jengas".

Our "turn" at Jenga isn't to remove more blocks though - our turn is to try to support the tower. Good diet, sodium-based medications ( and avoiding bad behaviors are ways to do so.
But, after the first jenga, additional jengas become more likely because the jenga process destabilizes the tower.
I recall someone talking about having a large phenytoin pill and using it as a Jenga piece to try to wedge it back between a gap left by jenga-ing
gaps are where axons start firing and then it starts jenga-ing again

wow that's a vague recollection - eerie and emotional - I got a little weepy :'o

so those axon positions can start firing from different stimuli, because they become active somehow or another - I guess using the jenga analogy, when blocks become jostled, but not removed completely, but through the jostling they become easier to remove

Hasbro better send me a check for this :)
 
but what I meant to add, is that new triggers are very possible because of the postictal sodium channels become interactive with new neurons in new ways - hence more prone to new triggers

like a lab rat's brain - stick a probe in one area and you can wiggle its tail - stick a probe in a different area and you can wiggle its nose...
different and unique neuronal stimulus points

With Just His Mind Man Wiggles Rat's Tail

Sodium Channel Blockers
 
The shorthand for what you're describing Peter is "Neurons that fire together, wire together." The more firing (seizing) that occurs, the more hardwired the firing behavior becomes, and the more likely that neighbor neurons in other parts of the brain will get involved and become hardwired too.
 
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