Seizures and...Solar and Geomagnetic Activity?

[cuppycake21]

Wow, interesting. While I haven't personally experienced this environmental correlation, I do think it's possible. After all, there are many, many causes of epilepsy and corresponding triggers. Knowledge is power and I think it's fantastic that you are paying attention to sensitivities.

 

[BIGMAN131307]

Well I'm not exactly sure about Solar and Geomagnetic Activity. I do know for a fact that heat is a trigger for me. That's why I don't enjoy summer at all. Anything higher than 70-75 degrees is to hot for me. I'd much rather have 40-60 degrees year round.
__________

We all are effected by our environment. Just like our environment is effected by us. Even though we've been having a lot of rain lately, it seems like the past week it was worse. I'm not talking about amount of rain, the range. IMO there was so much moisture around the world. This was caused by the great sadness felt all over with the loss of Robin Williams.
It's like the whole world cried together.

 

[cuppycake21]

BIGMAN - It seems that many autoimmune disorders are triggered by heat. I have friends with fibromyalgia and MS and they both flare a lot more in the summertime. Could it be as simple as the outside temperature causes internal inflammation? Maybe your body doesn't cool itself as easily? What medicine do you take? I know when I was on Zonegran I couldn't sweat and couldn't cool down. I feel that the Zonegran caused inflammatory issues for me.

 

[elizzza811]

Seizures & Solar & Geomagnetic Activity? Updated Space Weather Links on Page 9...

Figured I'd update some of the links to the Space Weather websites I provided in some of my earlier posts since they recently revamped their website and a lot of the old links no longer work. Plus I found some new ones that I've found useful.

UTC to EST Time Converter (for those who live on the East Coast):
http://www.timebie.com/timezone/utcest.php

SWPC Space Weather Now:
http://legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov/SWN/index.html

SWPC Today's Space Weather (study the graphs as these will eventually mean something to you):
http://legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html

SWPC Planetary K-Index (be on the lookout for yellow & red bars):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/planetary-k-index

SWPC Geomagnetic A-Indices (be on the lookout for yellow & red bars):
http://legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/a-index.html

SWPC GOES Proton Flux (study the graph):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-proton-flux

SWPC GOES Electron Flux (study the graph):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-electron-flux

SWPC GOES X-Ray Flux (study the graphs):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-x-ray-flux

SWPC GOES Magnetometer (study the graph):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-magnetometer

SWPC Solar Region Summary (a good one - be on the lookout for beta-gamma and beta-gamma-delta sunspots as these have complex magnetic fields)
http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/reports/sunspotreport

Space Weather Current Conditions (a good one):
http://spaceweather.com/

SolarSoft Latest Events Archive (a good one):
http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events_archive.html

SWPC Space Weather Alerts Archives (a good one - you can access years of archived data):
http://legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html

Space Weather Live Aurora & Solar Activity Archive (access archived data):
http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/archive/2014/12

British Geological Survey Solar & Geomagnetic Data (a good one - access archived data, including geomagnetic indices):
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/data_service/space_weather/solar.html

SWPC Space Weather Alerts (a good one - precise times of flares, the onsets of geomagnetic storms, etc...):
http://legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/archive/current_month.html

SWPC Forecast Discussion (a good one - summaries & forecasts):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/forecast-discussion

SWPC Home Page:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Space Weather Live:
http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/

SOHO Solar & Heliospheric Observatory:
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/

 

[sanitus]

Yyyyep!

Hello!
I have done this same research and there is an accurant connection.

F.e. yesterday i had a seizure (I knew it already because ive been looking for space weathernow conditions daily). I had my seizure start at 13:44, and when I looked from spaceweather.com yesterdays solar activity (actually geomagnetic activity): there was an increase of solar radiation AND solar wind speed AT THAT EXCACT TIME. They jumped off the charts at the same time I had my seizure! And that information is measured ON THE GROUND (not when these bursts passes space-meters which predicts these events and their arrival).

This is really something to be aware of so we can predict even some of seizures.

When there comes solar effects (coronal hole sprays plasma: protons and other x-ray particles WITH high solar wind speed) to our magnetic field and there is other activity (fe solar "bursts" from sunspot regions at high speed and it comes towards earth) at the same time: it effects the most to our magnetic-field AND airs electricity! This was yesterday (and will go on 3 days at least from now).

These two together -so to speak- "messes up" our electromagnetic living and it is long-known to affect living on earth. Birds and fish loses their ways because effects on the geomagnetic field. AND sun-event-caused electricity causes disturbanses on the ground in electricity f.e. CAUSING FIRES on power-lines on the ground. Just to mention one.
We have had many fires at Finland reported in last few days. It is just basic electricity knowledge: there comes too much tension and power lines cannot bear that burden.

SO it is common sense that these kind of events on sun affects human body too! We are also filled with fluid, electricity in our brains and nervous-system and magnetig field affects f.e. how our blood cells are arranged in our veins! Magnetism really sorts our cells and so affects circulation (any fluid in body) greatly. And if you can figure in your mind how small we are on the Big Magnet- Earth, it is not so hard to make sense of this.

These evens causes also arrythmias, cardiag-arrrests, swelling in joins, aches, migraines and epileptic seizures (if prone to that). All because our circulation and electricity in our body is disturbed.

I could predict that if you didn't have seizure or otherwise just dizziness, heart palpitations, swelling, tiredness, nausea yesterday: there will be in next 3 days.

Be well and remember to be more cautious recarding your seizures now <3
Sanitus

 

[Geomagman]

Predicting & Preventing Seizures with Geophysics

By way of an introduction, I'm a geophysicist investigating space weather causes of neurodegenerative diseases. I’m also working on protection and treatment strategies of the same. My research and experimentation so far has been with epilepsy and Parkinson's Disease.

I don't have epilepsy but I was diagnosed early this year with PD. So you could say I have extra motivation to understand how geomagnetism plays a critical role in damaging the brain and how to stop and reverse the damage.
What attracted me to this forum was this thread about geomagnetic storms and their correlation with seizures.

Back in 2003 I got interested in the heliobiology/epilepsy connection, as a friend of mine was suffering greatly from repeated seizures during a powerful geomagnetic storm. Back then, space weather was in its infancy and it was hard to get people to take you seriously, especially doctors, when you talked about solar storms, CME’s, the solar wind and geomagnetic pulsations. Things are beginning to change thanks to multiple research papers and Chronobiologic studies, documenting many serious diseases being intimately connected with geophysical activity. Even so, thinking outside the box and using geophysics as a tool to help epilepsy victims is just now coming into view.

My research interest is developing effective strategies to predict seizures and if possible, prevent them from them from happening. I also believe that your geographical location plays an important role in your vulnerability to seizures. Thinks to a 2001 scientific paper I published with other scientists from The Halberg Chronobiology Center on human motivation being influenced by geomagnetic activity; I discovered some locations have very low incidence of neurodegenerative disease and seizures. If I can get access to epilepsy seizure logs (as described by some people in this forum) I can correlate that with data from magnetic observatories. The result would then hopefully be a map showing more or less risk from seizures.

I’m also opening to answering any questions you might have about space weather and its biological effects.

 

[sanitus]

High proton particles from sun

Hello! And thank you for your answer. I too remember that 2003 and also 2011 were very geomagnetically disturdeb. Now I have been daily looking the graphs on NOAA and gettin alert and other interesting things in my e-mail. I also look at the Spaceweather.com an various other sites, so I can get a good look at the aväction in the sun and especially geomagnetic disturbances. There was a massive CME 23.5 and it is effecting us when arrived 2-4 days after. I live in latitude 60/Finland, Turku. I have experienced especially today 25th a bad headache as my children and had a bad fit in the evening.
It would be great you to have epi-diary/log but if it is not possible - maybe people here should subscribe to the alerts- systems so they could predict even some of the activity/seizures ahead? I cannot figure anything else out. What you suggested sounds very good.
The fact is now that there is geomagmetig events going on monthly and now there is very big risk to have seizures because there has been a coronal mass ejection (CME) just after and during a big solar proton event. They SPE (solar proton event: highly ionisated particles which affect us via electricity) numbers have risen extremely and they weaken our atmosphere. That's why CME (coronal mass ejections, aka sun bursts) at that same time are extremely bad combination.

Weaken atmosphere, protons coming through and solar bursts together are very bad. Solar events (CMEs) causes magnetofield to change and if they come in bad angle to atmosphere they can cause severe magnetic mess. Add there some ionisized protons to mess electricity and high sun wind speed - nothing good comes from that.
Had this alert :

"Energetic Particles

.24 hr Summary...
The greater than 2 MeV electron flux was at high levels with a peak flux
of 26,098 pfu observed at 22/1650 UTC. The greater than 10 MeV
proton flux remained at background values. (These values in pfu!!!! And after that there came an CME.. oh dear. I've seen pfus like 3000/6000, but now they are at the same levesl that 1890 when there came this biggest ever event which turned light off from whole towns)

.Forecast...
The greater than 2 MeV electron flux is expected to reach high levels,
with a chance for very high levels, on all three days of the forecast
period (23-25 May) in response to elevated wind speeds from CH HSS
influence. The greater than 10 MeV proton flux is expected to continue
at background levels."

I get these (there are others too) alerts from here:
.sws.bom.gov.au
there is a link for e-mail alerts

If it is not possible to make a warning project for seizure-sensitive people maybe getting these alerts would help to predict some of them. And if anyone who can explain these CME's and other terms in simple way to understand, maybe it would work nicely?

I have also had to close my mouth because people think Im crazy adding these two issues together. But every geomagnetic strom (G2 is enough) people have headache and nausea etc. It is true. And I am actually thrilled to find someone to think alike and havin' made the same conclusions after studying this subject!!
Sani

 

[Geomagman]

Hi Sani,

That is an interesting post and you most certainly are living in a very turbulent area for space weather effects. Your personal experiences mirror several research studies about headaches and seizures being tied to active geomagnetic conditions. Here are a just few research studies you can find online to show others about space weather effects:

(note this forum software won't let me post links so just insert the title information to your search engine to get the url)

Geomagnetic Activity and the Severity of the Migraine Attack
A. Kuritzky M.D., Y. Zoldan M.D., R. Hering M.D.,

Geomagnetic activity, humidity, temperature and headache: is there any correlation?
De Matteis G1, Vellante M, Marrelli A, Villante U, Santalucia P, Tuzi P, Prencipe M

Correlation between convulsive seizure and geomagnetic activity
Mita Rajaram1, S. Mitra2


Possible Effect of Geomagnetic Fluctuations on the Timing of Epileptic Seizures
James Spottiswoode


Understanding space weather predictions is no easy task if you try to account for all the variables intimately related to predicting what will happen even a few days later. Even the expert’s predictions frequently fail but that doesn’t mean longer range forecasts are not useful. Personally, while I do read daily solar & geophysical forecasts, I use live geomagnetic observatory data to see how disturbed the geomagnetic field is.

What is more important though is minimizing the effects of space weather on the human population. So, what do you do when a big geomagnetic storm is about to happen?

Do you know that there are places where you can live that suffer very little or any space weather? If it is not practical to relocate to such an area you can make a space weather storm shelter at your home that you and your family can safely wait out even the largest of geomagnetic storms. I’m building one of those now.

 

[sanitus]

Thank you so much!
I just had alerts via e-mail that there is G4 happening now and Kp index is 7 but they warn about its possibility to actually be 8 at times. Yeah, I do live in quite mysterious place recarding these storms.

I also look real-time solar meters for various places. It is impossible to predict anything accurate, but checking these things out I can plan my days and fe keep my meds close or take my dog with me.

Kiruna magnetogram tells a lot about my latitudes and our covernment has very nice way of expressing solar-events in its systems. Have to say, that those sites are created and updated with more information since beginning of this year.

SO I think there is an overall expectation that there will be a bigger event coming. If its not already starting to happen. I havent seen these kind of numbers after I started my studies so I am a little bit worried. Maybe not because of my condition but in general of our country (we are so near polar-region) and affects of these events on our everyday- systems.

I do post info at my fb pahe and explain them to people but as you mentioned, there isnt quite nice reactions to them. People do not aknowledge what the impacts might be nowadays for fe. S-storms. But I've explained them on and on.
We had several fires during last week - a LOT more than usual in this time of year. I've been monitoring these many years and this is unusual what is happening now.

I think it is quite obvious that there has been preparing for events from government; we just had a safety-plan given to all houses and there was said that everyone need to get supplies like water-cans, food at least for a week and meds etc. I am a security-guard and I can really see the preparations due to the nature of my work (been doing safetyplans and risk-evaluations myself).

There has also been disturbances in train and airplane schedules and travellin but these have been presented and explained to population in many different ways.

I can see these are really connected and I have prepared by bying stuff for power outtakes etc. I have made a box "faraday's way" and keep important stuff there. Also I have water stored, safety-plan said that there should be water and food for a week, but I play it safe.

It is very nice to talk with you because it seems u really have the same interest and and a lot of knowledge.. and I now know that even though I have asperger's - I'm not crazy

How are you building a safe house for you? I'd like to hear? If U want to share.

Thank you so much! Hope this big event going on keep everyone safe ~<3

 

[sanitus]

I need to add when my seizures started:
Seizures started firs at 2008, then again at summer 2011.
Another period was at 2015 (started Big 3.3.15 with 3 hours "out" and in ER, and went on to the end of the year) and last period started 7.4.17.

 

[Geomagman]

Hi Sani,

I’ve been watching that geomagnetic storm as well. My interest is the biological effects of these storms on animals and humans. Even bacteria and viruses are strongly influenced by these storms in how their DNA evolves. Medical researchers now realize that some diseases become more virulent in cycles that show correlation with solar activity. Even your dreams and driving ability (driving a vehicle) are influenced by geomagnetic storms.

An easy way to see if geomagnetic storms are influencing your brain even if you don’t have seizures is to record a personal journal your average reaction time once a day. You can do this by using one of the several free online reaction time tests to quickly see what your average time is. Next, compare that to days with higher geomagnetic activity especially during geomagnetic storms. You may see a dramatic slowing of your reaction time during geomagnetic storms. The geophysicist Fraser-Smith discovered that back in the 1970’s and it shows in part why there are more auto accidents during geomagnetic storms.

Behavioral effects are also evident during geomagnetic storms. Some researchers have even discovered that our brain’s hemispheric dominance can shift during storms, giving them different emotional responses for several hours. Talk about feeling like a different person!

There are just a few effective ways I know of to prevent space weather related seizures. The best way is to wait out a geomagnetic storm in a magnetically shielded room. These are 100% effective but the rooms are extremely expensive, often costing more than a million dollars. Only some hospitals have these rooms and they are small. They are made out of many layers of mumetal shielding and require an engineer to build.

Something more practical and economical is to use a large Helmholtz coil in your home. This is the approach I’m using to do my research. AS I can’t yet post images or links, all I can say is that they look like the interstellar portal out of the Stargate television series. They create a magnetic and electric force field that blocks out all magnetic energy from geomagnetic storms. They are also 100% effective in providing protection but they still cost a few thousand dollars (USD) to make one large enough for one or two people. I will post some pics when my website training wheels come off.

Finally, using very high powered negative ion generators has been tried by Japanese medical researchers to reduce the number of seizures from subjects. This requires several weeks of ion treatment to stop seizures effectively, but it is unknown how long this protection lasts. Costs are also unknown.

By the way, we are headed into the low end of the sunspot cycle. That should mean smaller and less frequent solar storms and that is OK by me.

 

[sanitus]

Oh whoh! We have had severely increased vehicle-accidents also. That is interesting.

Yesterday i had swollen fingers, this is usual for me while storms. I have had now two bad melt-downs during a week; goes with my autism spectrum disorder, and I have had a looong time them gone. My sleeping had been disturbed. My son has been very emotional which is not usual and other one has had bad dreams (he is also adhd/As) and been more emotional than usual. I have dominant left brain as my AS-son. I've noticed a differrence in both of us; we've been more "touchable" and emotionally connected to other. That is a good affect of-course but goes with what U said about brain dominance.

Also my son had bad stomach-ache. And I had heart-palpitations and nausea. Our dog have been acting strangely few days. He has been biting our other dog continuously and he does not do that -like ever.
And I do have severe morning headache every time there is storms. As last week. I have severe migraine which are so bad during these. And I have more absence-seizures with myoclonic jerks. As I had friday.

My tourette gets worse also. In my brain i have this "fasciculus uncinatus" evolved wrong. It is the latest growing human-white-nervous-systems nerv-path which goes straight in very deep part of the brain, controlling emotions, memory, hormones, language, learning - everything. (I am good study-object cos I dont have any psychological-issues to go along.)
And when there is magnetic/electric activity I can say when my brains are not working as they should (even though they're function is untypical to neurotypical-persons).

Just in my own class now there has been migraines, tinnitus, bad blood-circulation problems in very young person whom had to have medication for blood-pressure.

My son just told me that he had this weekend very slow-reaction time in a pc-game. Now when I told this information to him he was really surprised. They know about these because i tell them when they might have nausea, headache or tiredness and they should not be worried about that. I also ask them after stormy days that has thete been these symptoms in their class and every time they report nausea or headache.

Now I have to go to school (it is 8am here in Finland ) so have a nice day and I'll read rest of this later.
Oh and did you see noaas real time s.a. from three days... yikes! What a "bumb" in the Bz box! And it was then just bypassing the satellite. We'll see.

If I've undestood correctly if the Bz (nt) and Bt lines differ greatly from each other it predicts how severe will the geaomagnetig influnce be. Of course I need to look also the speed of sun wind n density but this is the easiest way? I havent figure out yet which angle will effect Finland most; the phi angle. If you could explain this to me? Now i think it is just looking the negative Nt-numbers and their severity (fe yesterday they were repoter to be -12nT)

I am also worried about the Pfu values which have been elevated and now they are said to be Sfu 83. And planetary A was 51. That was new. How long have u studied these? I've never yet seen any of these numbers to that high, but in history.

Have a nice day/ night there!
Sani

 

[sanitus]

Last night I had two seizures in the evening 7.33pm (GMT +2), abcense lasted 20minutes and few myoclonic jerks came after. So this info goes with the storm.
Also waiting the cycle to come calmer state.
And I have to ask: Don't U think -otherwise than reported- that the 23th CME was quite anormous? Observed from LASCO C2 it was very big, half-halo and turbulent. They said that "we had a nice eye-candy" over there. I would prefer honest reporting about the possible effects but now they try to make it sound like there is no need to worry.

I also investigated Finland's new projects concidering space-weather and you might be interested to look how our government is actually preparing. Just found it yesterday when I was looking Sodankylä- observatory.

Look at the website w w w fmiarc fmi fi and especially the projects started! Very interesting!

 

[Geomagman]

Hello Sani,

Thank you for your detailed description of how the geomagnetic storm of the past few days showed its biological influence on you and your family. Even your dog didn’t get away without some effects! While I can show some empathy for what you went through, I was also feeling the effects of that CME. While I’ve never had a seizure I have Parkinson’s disease and that expresses itself through essential; tremor, difficulty walking, inability to use a keyboard, and some general mental degradation (meaning I become mentally dull and slow). I didn’t get a headache but could feel one knocking at the door.

Normally, I suffer few or no symptoms because I use photobiomodulation (this is a high tech form of brain stimulation that supercharges the brain with bright light) to manage the PD. Generally, the effects of each treatment last about 5-7 hours and I do two sessions a day, but the effects wore off in just a few hours because of the geomagnetic storm. I would hate to see the effects of the same space weather where you live. The energy of the geomagnetic storms is a lot less here in New Mexico than in Finland!

Regarding predicting space weather, the easy way to get a overall view of what is going on or will likely happen soon, is to read the latest synopsis of all the important variables. I use the site: spaceweathernews.com to do this. If you want more details, simply go browsing in the data feeds. As I’m most interested in what causes the biological interface with SW, I read local real-time magnetometer data in analog plots (they also show the digital data) for the H variable (horizontal) as this shows pulsation data for different frequencies and their energy level/time. You should have some of those in Finland.

So what good is it knowing what the SW is doing now or will do shortly? Well for one thing, you might be able to prevent getting a headache by using a CES device. These are electrotherapy devices that optimize your brain waves to ward off pain, headaches, depression, insomnia, anxiety and more. They are fairly affordable and your doctor may give you a prescription for one, and your health insurance may cover the costs. I’ve used CES, on and off, for over 5 years and it makes me feel good each time I use it. It is safe and painless. You can do it at home and your kids can use it to.

Wish I had more time to answer your questions but I’m trying to catch up with things I put off due to the SW storm.

 

[sanitus]

Hello and thank you for your answer even though you have decrease ability to type. I am sorry to hear about your PD and thank you for your ideas about how to manage my condition also!
Now there is calmer time so let's see what will happen next!
I am now at school so -later!! Have a nice day!!
Sani