Boris was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 20, although he explains that it probably manifested to him beforehand without being aware of it. During the day he suffered several absences, his brain disconnected and he did not know what was happening around him or what he was doing. Other times, he moved his limbs without being able to control it. “My colleagues discriminated against me, they thought he was contagious,” confesses Boris, a native of Bolivia, who is currently 45 years old and lives in Barcelona. In fact, they made him believe that he could infect the rest if he touched them. It was then that he began to experience depression, which would be with him for a long time.
“One day I went to the butcher shop and when I tried to order the words didn’t come out,” says Glòria Catarineu, 52. That same day, she came home groggy and lay down on her bed. “I lost consciousness and suffered seizures,” says this woman who was 23 years old at the time. Although they do not imply loss of consciousness, absences are just as serious because if the person is on the beach they can drown, if they are waiting for the subway they can fall onto the tracks or if they are cooking they can burn.
Epilepsy is a group of diseases that are characterized by the predisposition of the brain to produce seizures, that is, sudden and uncoordinated discharges of neurons that affect one or several areas of the brain. “A patient can develop epilepsy due to head trauma, brain inflammation, or a genetic component, but in more than 70% of cases the cause cannot be identified,” explains Dr. Rodrigo Rocamora, director of the Epilepsy unit at the hospital of the sea
There is a belief that seizures involve a loss of consciousness accompanied by seizures. However, the reality is that they can also manifest in the form of memory alteration, repetition of movements, disconnection of consciousness, etc.
Despite the fact that Boris and Glòria took medication, their crises did not stop. Both patients suffered from drug-resistant epilepsy. The lives of patients with this type of epilepsy are especially limited in their day to day. Rocamora says that they marry less because they experience social rejection and misunderstanding, and therefore tend to isolate themselves because they are ashamed of their condition. In addition, they have less promotion in the labor ladder and many are unemployed. “The jobs lasted one or two weeks, a day and sometimes just hours,” explains Boris, a situation that aggravated his depression.
“A large percentage of sleep disturbances has to do with anxiety and depression,” explains the expert, who details that lack of sleep or stress can increase the frequency of crises. These electrical discharges are burning the circuits and progressively damaging the memory. However, within the comorbidities of epilepsy, the most important are psychiatric disorders.
Rocamora throws a question into the air: “What is the ultimate goal of medicine? It is not only prolonging life, but prolonging the associated quality of life”. The mortality of patients with epilepsy and psychiatric disorders is up to five or six times higher.
Boris suffered from daily crises and depression for years. “It would take me a whole day to recover and the next day I would have another one.” On November 17, 2020, his life changed forever and, as he says, he was born again. The hospital operated on him to try to eliminate the epilepsy, removing a part of his brain. Since then he has not suffered any seizures, although he continues to take medication. After many years, Boris no longer has depression and he confesses that he feels very happy and grateful to the whole team. In addition, he has been working for almost two years as a healthcare provider, a job that he is passionate about because he helps and cares for others.
Glòria, on the contrary, did not suffer any disorder, but she does admit that she hid her illness for fear of being judged. After two operations, she continues with the drugs, but the crises have stopped.
