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Posted by KellieMyHS in Kellie's blog, Other Health News on January 3, 2009 | 2 responses | permalink

Low blood oxygen affects epileptics

A new study has found that some sudden deaths in epileptic patients is due to a drop in blood oxygen levels.


The epileptic study

The study studied Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, or what doctors refer to as SUDEP to understand deaths of epileptics not explained by repeated convulsive seizures or accidents.

Researchers examined records of 300 seizures in 57 epilepsy patients with chronic, recurrent, unprovoked seizures.

A third of all seizures were associated with drops in blood oxygen levels below 90%. In addition, 12% of these patients’ blood oxygen levels dropped below 70% during their seizures.


The researchers comments

Study author, Professor Seyal from UC Davis Medical Center said, “Significant drops in blood oxygen levels are more common than we thought in patients with partial seizures.”

“What we’ve known for a long time is that SUDEP appears to be the most important cause of increased mortality in epilepsy patients. What we haven’t known is what causes it.”


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2 Responses to “Low blood oxygen affects epileptics”

  1. laura douglas says:
    December 15, 2011 at 11:39 am

    Hi, thanks for this information, my 2yo suffers from seizures due to damage to her temporal lobe, when shes on the sats machine her oxygen level fall to 16% i have seen them fall as low as 8%, This is very scary to watch as she becomes lifeless, im tryin to find out if having oxygen at home will help her durin and after her seizures as when she gets this in hospital it definately speeds up the recovery time, there is not alot of information on this online that i can find, can any help???please. thanks Laura

    Reply
    • Steve says:
      December 16, 2011 at 5:15 pm

      Hi Laura,

      Best wishes for your daughter. I hope you can find the answers you need and I hope things get better for her.

      Hopefully someone who can help will read this. If so, I will surely pass the information on to you.

      Again my best wishes,
      Steve
      My Health Software support

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About Kellie

Kellie is 37 years old and together with her brother Steve makes up the My Health Software team.

She helps on the websites and gathering news for the programs. Kellie worked in the medical industry prior to having her two children (8 and 6) and has a strong interest in self awareness and management of health conditions.


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