Most People Don’t “Just Have” Seizures for No Reason
WASHINGTON – Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure at his summer home in Maine on Monday, causing a fall that resulted in minor scrapes, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.
He was to remain in a hospital in Maine overnight.
Roberts, 52, was taken by ambulance to the Penobscot Bay Medical Center, where he underwent a “thorough neurological evaluation, which revealed no cause for concern,†Arberg said in a statement.
Roberts had a similar episode in 1993, she said.
AND
Doctors called Monday’s incident “a benign idiopathic seizure,” Arberg said. The White House described the January 1993 episode as an “isolated, idiosyncratic seizure.” Both descriptions indicate that doctors could not determine the seizure’s cause or link it to another medical condition.
St. George Ambulance responded to a call at about 2 p.m. Monday of a man who had fallen 5 to 10 feet and landed on a dock, hitting the back of his head. The patient was ashen and was foaming at the mouth. National news report quotes a Supreme Court spokeswoman as saying that Roberts was conscious the entire time of the incident. That spokeswoman has not returned a telephone call to the newspaper.
7 Responses to “Most People Don’t “Just Have” Seizures for No Reason”
No, most people don’t, but some do. As one of the links pointed out, technically since he’s now suffered two seizures he has epilepsy but it may or may not require treatment.
Since epilepsy is fairly common in dogs, I often counsel clients about it and most are surprised to learn that everyone (human and canine) has a seizure threshold and epileptics just have a lower threshold. In other words, with enough stimulus, you or I would have seizures too but for an epileptic, the stimulus required to trigger seizure activity is less intense so that it can occur at certain times. Again, the question is whether or not the frequency and severity of seizures are enough to require anticonvulsant therapy.
“Since epilepsy is fairly common in dogs”
Hehe, C, thx for the confirmation, that’s what I always suspected Roberts to be!
thanks C. Stanley for bringing those facts to bear… That’s good info for pp. A lot of folks who aren’t familiar with seizure
disorders think a siezure is like a stroke. It’s different.
And yes, it can mean grave things. Also can be transcient and forever mysterious. I’d be more concerned about
a closed head injury re Judge Roberts. We have a
saying, you can fall off your bike in the driveway and
die… a fall from just standing … equal to your own height alone
can do it.
I know the cartoonists’ pens must be smoking right
now. And I wish him well.
dr.e
Gray, your ignorance is showing.
I don’t know why C Stanley mentioned seizures in dogs; perhaps he or she is a veterinarian.
As for human beings, more than 3 million Americans have epilepsy and for you to imply that having a seizure makes someone a dog is just stupid.
Is that what you took away from what C told you?
As one of those Americans with epilepsy, I advise you to either wise up (learn more at http://www.efa.org) or shut up.
I meant to go back and insert into that sentence the fact that (as ruserious correctly surmised) I am a veterinarian. I think Gray probably figured that out (or may have remembered from some of my previous comments here) but couldn’t resist making a ‘funny’.
“Gray, your ignorance is showing.”
Oops. I’m so sorry for being ignorant about personal medical details that should be the patient’s and his doctors’ business only.
“Gray”"couldn’t resist making a ‘funny’.”
Indeed. Sry C, and thx for understanding this wasn’t meant as a joke on your profession.
Ok, honestly now, I have no real desire to seriously discuss medical problems of an official as long as they don’t affect his performance on the job, and I don’t think that’s the case here.