Aen Boris was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 20, although he explains that it had probably occurred to him previously without being aware of it. During the day he suffered from several absences, his brain would disconnect and he did not know what was happening around him or what he was doing. Other times, he would move his limbs uncontrollably. “My colleagues discriminated against me, they thought I was contagious”, confesses Boris, a native of Bolivia, who is currently 45 years old and lives in Barcelona. In fact, they led him to believe that he could command the rest if he touched them. It was then that he began to experience depression, which would accompany him for a long time.
“One day I went to the butcher’s and when I tried to order, I couldn’t get the words out,” explains Glòria Catarineu, 52 years old. That same day, she arrived home dizzy and lay down in bed. “I lost consciousness and suffered convulsions”, explains this woman who was 23 at the time. Although they do not involve loss of consciousness, the absences are just as serious because if the person is at the beach they can drown, if they are waiting for the subway they can fall on the tracks or if they are cooking they can burn themselves.
Epilepsy is a set of diseases characterized by the brain’s predisposition 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, due to a genetic component, but in more than 70% of cases the cause cannot be identified”, explains Dr. Rodrigo Rocamora, director of the unit of epilepsy at the Hospital del Mar.
There is a belief that seizures involve a loss of consciousness accompanied by convulsions. However, the reality is that they can also manifest in the form of altered memory, repetition of movements, disconnection of consciousness, etc.
Despite the fact that Boris and Gloria were medicated, their crises did not stop. Both patients had drug-resistant epilepsy. The lives of patients with this type of epilepsy are particularly limited in their day-to-day life. Rocamora explains that they marry less because they suffer social rejection and misunderstanding and therefore tend to isolate themselves because they are ashamed of their condition. In addition, they have less promotion on the job ladder and many are unemployed. “My jobs lasted a week or two, a day and sometimes just hours,” explains Boris, a situation that aggravated his depression.
“A high percentage of sleep disturbances have to do with anxiety and depression”, explains the expert, who details that lack of sleep or stress can increase the frequency of crises. These electric discharges burn the circuits and progressively damage the memory. However, among the comorbidities of epilepsy, the most important are psychiatric disorders.
Rocamora raises a question: “What is the final goal of medicine? It’s not just 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 greater.
Boris suffered from daily crises and depression for years. “It took a whole day to recover and the next day I had 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 part of the brain. Since then he has not suffered a crisis, although he continues to take medication. After many years, Boris is no longer depressed and confesses that he feels very happy and grateful to the whole team. In addition, he has been working as a social worker for almost two years, a job he is passionate about because he helps and cares for others.
Glòria, on the other hand, did not suffer any disorder, but she does admit that she hid her illness for fear of being judged. After two operations, he continues with the drugs, but the seizures have stopped.