Patient's question:
A three-year-old child often has convulsions after crying and screaming. The convulsions last for about ten minutes. His parents initially thought he was calcium-deficient and gave him calcium supplements, but now two months later, the condition is still the same. Is this a precursor to epilepsy?Doctor's answer:
Seizure is one of the main symptoms of epilepsy, but it is not a unique symptom of the disease. The condition is primarily caused by abnormal discharges of brain cells, leading to abnormal brain function and sudden symptoms such as falling to the ground, loss of consciousness, generalized convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and upward rolling of the eyes, among others. Of course, other diseases can also cause seizures, such as psychogenic seizures, hypocalcemic seizures, febrile seizures in children, and hypoglycemic seizures, which do not fall under the category of epilepsy. Therefore, not all seizures are caused by epilepsy. Additionally, some types of epilepsy patients do not exhibit seizure symptoms, such as absence seizures, temporal lobe epilepsy, abdominal epilepsy, and headache epilepsy. Thus, seizures should not be equated with epilepsy.