The Science Behind Seizures

As a parent, there’s really nothing worse than witnessing your kiddo experiencing seizures and not knowing what to do, how to respond, or the help to get. As pediatric chiropractors, we are blessed to have been able to take care of numerous kiddos over the past 10 years that have had seizures – and if you are struggling with this, we want to help you too.

The hardest thing with a seizure diagnosis or trying to get that seizure diagnosis is really knowing what’s causing them or where they’re coming from. There are so many different kinds. There are febrile seizures that are triggered by immune function, seizures triggered by environmental factors of exposure, and then there are seizures that are literally misfiring aspects of the brain. This makes it extremely difficult for a parent to know where to turn.

The traditional medical approach would say, we’re going to go and test the brain. They’ll look at an EEG of the brain to see where the misfiring signals are. Oftentimes the answer to that is to go on medication to help lower or dampen those misfiring signals. The sad part is a lot of times those medications don’t work effectively enough and you end up having to go up in medication and oftentimes the treatment isn’t even working. So what I want to dig into is going beyond the traditional approach, because when traditional medical recommendations don’t work, a lot of parents don’t know where to turn next.

We Need To Look Beyond The Brain

To clarify, there’s nothing wrong with the way we start looking at seizures from a medical perspective. They’re looking at the brain. When looking at the brain, most of the time they look for seizures in the upper hemisphere – the cerebral cortex, the frontal lobe, the occipital lobe, the areas that are essentially the outer part of the brain. They can see the signals that are either misfiring or miswiring. That is often what causes brain overload, thus the seizure from the input into it. 

But that’s where we really have to look at it differently. If this area is overwhelmed, where is that coming from in the nervous system? The central nervous system isn’t just the brain, it’s the brain stem, spinal cord, and everything that comes up and then feeds the brain. So when we look at seizures from a pediatric chiropractic standpoint, instead of just looking at it as a seizure, it’s looking at it as how much feedback is coming from the body in certain areas of that nervous system that communicates down and up that goes to the brain. 

What happens so often, especially with kiddos, is the upper neck region is so sensitive to neuromuscular tension, sensory tension, and all those different neurological processes of the body. If during the birth process or development, there’s a physical, chemical, or emotional trauma and something up in that area experiences imbalance, gets tense and tight, all that stress is going to feed into the brain. If that extra stress is feeding into the brain, that can cause an overwhelm and that’s where we’ve had the opportunity to help so many kids

When the seizures aren’t just coming from the cerebral cortex and they’re coming from the brain stem and that cervical thoracic spine, that feeds up into the brain and overwhelms it. When you take that away, it allows the child to really thrive and put more and more distance in between those seizures and a lot of times go seizure-free. 

How Can Chiropractic Care Help With Seizures?

Check out Ashlyn’s Story of Hope on our PX Docs site. Her story is exactly like what I’ve described – her parents were lost trying to figure out if the seizures were immune-related or a result of something in the environment.  We used our technology and INSiGHT scans and looked at Ashlyn and discovered it wasn’t as much coming from the cerebral cortex in those misfirings, but it was too much coming from the bottom or the cervical spine that was feeding forward. Our scans can show us exactly where the signals get crossed. 

When we look at normal synapses, we see connections all over the place. But when we get a stress synapse – from tension and overwhelming stress, the neuro connections become fewer. That’s the exact definition of what happens with seizures. We get absolutely overwhelmed and it causes the brain to misfire, slow down, reset, and really almost just stop so that way it has the time to rest, relax and refuel. 

This may not be the exact care for every single kiddo with seizures, but if you’re struggling with medications or you’re overwhelmed, not just from the seizures, but from behavior, emotions, or social anxiety, it is likely that it’s not just coming from the upper levels of the brain. It might be that feedback. 

There’s not a lot of research and documentation that goes into seizures outside of medication and that’s something we’re working hard on. Here is a seizure article that dives deeper into the science behind what I’m talking about.  

We know that every single case is different and that’s why we would need to do an in-depth consultation. We need to use our technology and scans to dive in and see where the seizures are coming from. Are they coming from the top or are they coming from that lower neuro-spinal muscular system that’s flooding into the brain? If the latter is the case, then we’ll really be able to help them. 

Please reach out to your local PX Doc so they can dig into your child’s case. If you’re struggling with any type of seizure, we are here to help. We have been through it before and really want to help you and help your child thrive.