Patient's question:
My boyfriend has epilepsy. But when he has a recurrence, it's relatively mild, and I've only seen it happen once in the past year. So I still want to be with him, but my mom is very against it. She says, "What if our children inherit it?" My boyfriend says it's not hereditary, that it's something that developed later in life, but my mom doesn't believe him.Doctor's answer:
① Congenital malformations: such as chromosomal abnormalities, congenital hydrocephalus, microcephaly, corpus callosum agenesis, and cerebral cortex dysplasia, etc.② Antenatal and perinatal diseases: Birth injuries are a common cause of symptomatic epilepsy in infancy.
③ Post-heatstroke sequelae: Severe and prolonged febrile seizures can lead to brain damage, including neuronal loss and gliosis, primarily in the medial temporal lobe, especially the hippocampus.
④ Cranial brain injury: Epilepsy resulting from post-traumatic brain injury is often accompanied by depressed fractures, dural tears, and local neurological signs, as well as long-term memory impairment.
⑤ Infections: Various bacterial meningitis, brain abscesses, granulomas, viral encephalitis, and parasitic diseases such as echinococcosis, schistosomiasis, and toxoplasmosis can lead to epilepsy.
⑥ Poisoning: Lead, mercury, carbon monoxide, ethanol, strychnine, isoniazid poisoning, as well as systemic diseases like preeclampsia and uremia, can all induce epilepsy.
⑦ Intracranial tumors
⑧ Cerebrovascular diseases: Epilepsy is more common in middle-aged and elderly individuals, especially with cerebral embolism, thrombosis, and multiple lacunar recurrences. Hypertensive encephalopathy is also often associated with epilepsy.
⑨ Nutritional and metabolic diseases: Children with rickets are prone to epilepsy. In adults, hypoglycemia caused by pancreatic islet tumors, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, hypoparathyroidism, and vitamin B6 deficiency can lead to recurrence.