Someone I work with has a cement pouring business with her husband. It’s hard work, especially given that Hawai’i can get pretty hot, but they are both quite strong. Her husband is around 71, I think, and has generally been in good health, doesn’t smoke or anything.
Anyway, today on a job he had an “episode” so his wife took him to the ER, where he had another in front of the doctors - they said it seemed like a seizure. Over the next few hours he had two more and now I guess he is really out of it - doesn’t know where he is or what’s going on.
And as icing on the cake, there are no hospital beds so they are stuck in ER for the foreseeable future. I feel so bad for them. Any one have any theories as to what this could be? Whatever it is, I sure hope it’s treatable. My colleague is a sweetheart and I can’t bear the thought of her facing bad news over her husband’s condition.
Any response here is going to be pure speculation but repeated spontaneous seizures without any preceding medical history is often an indication of a brain tumor. That should be identifiable in an fMRI, although there are diagnostics to eliminate other causes (incipient diabetes, viral and parasitical infections of the brain, TBI, stroke) that can be performed without an MRI, which I would assume a g.p. has already done.
Obviously, any affliction of the brain is concerning but medical treatments for neurological disorders have improved dramatically in the last couple of decades. Here’s hoping for the best for you collegue and her husband.
Epilepsy is probably something they are also looking at. Late-onset epilepsy does occur, although it is relatively rare, and may result from a concurrent stroke or brain tumor.
We do have big problems with rat lungworm here, so that comes to mind as a source of a brain infection. (They eat fairly vegan, with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, many from the island, which would be a source of infection.)
Unfortunately stroke and brain tumor seem like good candidates as well. Eek.
Not much of an update but he has now had 4 seizures (that I know of - I am not getting minute-by-minute updates). He has no memory of any of them and doesn’t know why anyone is making a fuss.
Hi poor wife (my friend and co-worker) is beside herself and I don’t blame her.
If he has had a recent head injury, even one that didn’t seem serious and therefore was not even considered for a concussion diagnosis, that could have triggered seizures; a number of infections can, including just about any one that was accompanied by a high fever, or any kind of respiratory distress that caused an hypoxic episode.
People with dementia can experience late-life onset epilepsy. It isn’t often the first symptom of dementia, but it can be.
Late-life onset epilepsy is a thing. It’s not as common as onset before age 2, but for onset without an obvious trigger, it’s actually the most common time of life for the onset of epilepsy (although in women, it can also start during a pregnancy). If he has had any other kind of cranial events in his life he is a candidate for late-onset epilepsy. Events are things like recurrent migraines or cluster headaches.
That’s what I know from having worked with disabled people.
It means a lot of things are in the running, none of which is more likely than a tumor, unfortunately, and some of which aren’t much better news, but if he happens to be someone who has gotten migraines, that’s something to think about.
There are many, many possible etiologies for the situation as described. Might be an actual seizure (burst of uncontrolled electrical activity between brain cells), might be something completely different related to cardiac, pulmonary, endocrine or other systems. It could be completely psychosomatic. Figuring out what’s behind an apparent state of altered consciousness requires getting a good medical history, doing a decent physical exam, and getting appropriate tests. And even then the answer may be unclear.
I spent a few days in federal court this past year explaining to a jury just what goes into diagnosing such episodes.
I’m afraid Qadgop_the_Mercotan is right on. You’ll just have to be patient and wait while they go through the process of testing and diagnosis. Let’s hope the cause is the best of all the possible scenarios!
Kind of. The doctors ran a lot of tests and said that he was have heart issues that were causing the seizures. They put him on anti-seizure medications (and I think some medications for his heart/blood pressure as well, although I am not sure) and told him to rest. Also, he is not to drive for 6 months.
Since being released from the hospital (which I think happened almost immediately, he was only admitted for a short time), he hasn’t had anymore seizures.
They had been contemplating quitting the business for quite a while, but always “sometime in the future” … because of this health incident, they decided it was time. They’ve already sold their equipment and my friend has a new job. Hubby hates having to rest - he’s one of these always-on-the-go types who thinks of himself as strong and invincible - but he is doing a lot of work in the garden.
So, at the moment at least, the outcomes are positive.