What Are the Causes of Acquired Epilepsy?
Acquired epilepsy happens when your brain gets damaged after you’re born. It’s totally different from the genetic kind you inherit from your parents. When you know what causes it, you can spot the warning signs faster and get help sooner.
Right now about 250,000 Australians are living with epilepsy. A lot of these cases come from specific brain injuries or health problems. Doctors can usually track down what caused it. Some people get epilepsy without any clear reason showing up. But most of the time there’s something specific that triggered it.
Key Takeaways
- Acquired epilepsy develops from brain damage that occurs after birth, unlike genetic epilepsy which you inherit from your parents.
- Common causes include head injuries, strokes, brain infections, tumours, oxygen deprivation, and substance use, with different age groups facing different primary risk factors.
- Brain scans like MRI and CT can usually identify the physical damage causing acquired epilepsy, making diagnosis more straightforward than genetic forms.
- About 70 percent of people achieve good seizure control with proper medication, though treatment often needs to continue long-term.
- While the underlying brain damage is often permanent, early treatment of the original cause and consistent seizure management can significantly improve quality of life.
- Prevention strategies like wearing helmets, managing cardiovascular health, treating infections promptly, and avoiding head injuries can reduce your risk of developing acquired epilepsy.
What Is Acquired Epilepsy
Something hurts your brain after you’re born and that’s when acquired epilepsy shows up. The damage messes with how electrical signals work in there. These messed up signals lead to seizures happening over and over.
Think of your brain like a huge electrical grid. Signals fire between nerve cells constantly with perfect timing. When damage happens, these signals go haywire. Groups of cells start firing when they shouldn’t. All that chaotic activity comes out as seizures. You might just stare off into space for a bit. Or you could have full body shaking that’s way more intense.
How Acquired Epilepsy Is Different from Genetic Epilepsy
Genetic epilepsy comes from gene changes you inherit that affect how brain cells talk. Kids with the genetic kind usually show symptoms pretty early on. Their brain scans look totally normal though. There’s no actual damage you can see on the images.
Acquired epilepsy works differently because real physical damage happened first. Brain scans show this damage pretty clearly. You’ll see scars or busted up areas. Your seizures kicked off around when you got hurt. Though sometimes they don’t appear until way later as scar tissue builds up.
When Acquired Epilepsy Usually Starts
What Are the Causes of Acquired Epilepsy
- Head injuries and traumatic brain injuries
- Strokes and vascular problems affecting blood flow
- Brain infections like meningitis and encephalitis
- Brain tumours and structural abnormalities
- Oxygen deprivation to the brain
- Severe fevers and childhood infections
- Alcohol and drug use or withdrawal
- Metabolic and hormonal disorders
Head Injury and Brain Trauma
- Car crashes and vehicle accidents
- Bad falls from heights or slipping
- Sports injuries, particularly contact sports
- Physical assaults causing head trauma
- Workplace accidents and industrial injuries
Stroke and Reduced Blood Flow to the Brain
Strokes are the top cause for people over 60. Part of your brain stops getting blood and the cells there die without oxygen. That dead tissue becomes a spot where seizures can start. About one in ten stroke survivors ends up with epilepsy.
Types of strokes that can lead to epilepsy:
- Ischaemic strokes caused by blood clots blocking arteries
- Haemorrhagic strokes from bleeding in the brain
- Transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs) with repeated episodes
- Vascular malformations causing blood flow problems
Brain Infections Like Meningitis and Encephalitis
Infections in your brain or around it can leave permanent damage. Meningitis inflames the covering around your brain and spinal cord. Encephalitis goes after the brain tissue itself.
Common infections that may cause epilepsy include:
- Bacterial meningitis causing severe inflammation
- Viral encephalitis attacking brain cells directly
- Brain tuberculosis leaving scarring
- Brain abscesses from bacterial infections
- Parasitic infections like neurocysticercosis
- HIV-related brain infections
Brain Tumours and Structural Brain Changes
Tumours in your brain cause epilepsy whether they’re cancer or not. They push on tissue nearby and mess up how everything works. Tumours in certain spots are worse. Your temporal and frontal lobes have loads of electrical pathways.
Brain abnormalities that can trigger epilepsy:
- Benign tumours pressing on surrounding tissue
- Malignant brain cancers disrupting normal function
- Arteriovenous malformations (abnormal blood vessels)
- Cortical dysplasia where brain tissue didn't develop properly
- Cavernous malformations containing blood vessels
Lack of Oxygen to the Brain
Your brain is absolutely starving for oxygen all the time. Cut that off and cells start dying fast. You get permanent scars.
Situations causing oxygen deprivation include:
- Cardiac arrest stopping blood flow to the brain
- Nearly drowning in water
- Severe asthma attacks restricting oxygen
- Carbon monoxide poisoning from gas or smoke
- Birth complications during delivery
- Choking incidents blocking airways
- Severe anaemia reducing oxygen in blood
Severe Fever and Childhood Brain Infections
Really high fevers in little kids sometimes lead to epilepsy later on. Especially when the fever comes with seizures happening. Most febrile seizures are actually fine though. They don’t leave lasting damage. But the complicated ones can hurt the hippocampus. That bit of your brain helps control seizures and memory.
Brain infections when you’re a kid can leave damage you don’t notice at first. It might not show up as epilepsy until you’re a teenager or adult.
Alcohol and Drug Use or Withdrawal
Drinking heavily for years damages your brain in multiple ways. The alcohol itself is toxic to your brain cells. You get nutrition problems from it too. Going through withdrawal over and over adds more damage. Long term heavy drinking can give you epilepsy. This can stick around even if you quit completely.
Substances that can trigger epilepsy:
- Methamphetamine causing direct brain toxicity
- Cocaine leading to strokes and brain damage
- Heavy alcohol use over extended periods
- Withdrawal from alcohol or sedatives
- Certain prescription medications in high doses
- Synthetic drugs with unknown brain effects
Metabolic and Hormonal Disorders
Your brain depends on a precise chemical balance to function properly. When metabolic or hormonal systems go seriously wrong for extended periods, the resulting imbalances can damage brain tissue and trigger epilepsy. These conditions often develop gradually, making the connection to seizures less obvious initially.
Metabolic problems that may lead to epilepsy include:
- Severe uncontrolled diabetes causing repeated hypoglycaemia (dangerously low blood sugar) or hyperglycaemia (extremely high blood sugar)
- Chronic kidney disease allowing waste products to build up in the blood and poison brain cells
- Liver failure preventing proper detoxification and leading to hepatic encephalopathy
- Electrolyte imbalances including very low sodium (hyponatraemia), low calcium (hypocalcaemia), or low magnesium (hypomagnesaemia)
- Thyroid disorders, particularly severe hypothyroidism affecting brain metabolism
- Mitochondrial disorders disrupting energy production in brain cells
- Autoimmune encephalitis where your immune system mistakenly attacks brain tissue
- Lupus affecting the central nervous system
- Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis causing severe brain inflammation
- Hashimoto's encephalopathy linked to thyroid antibodies
- Multiple sclerosis with brain lesions disrupting electrical signals
How These Causes Damage the Brain and Lead to Seizures
Brain damage messes up the normal electrical balance between all your nerve cells. Injured spots form scar tissue and that’s where bad signals start. These damaged areas fire off way too much electricity randomly. That electricity spreads to healthy tissue nearby. That’s when you actually have a seizure.
Where the damage is affects what kind of seizures you get. Damage on both sides of your brain usually means your whole body gets involved. Damage in just one spot causes seizures related to what that area normally does.
Your Condition May Qualify for Alternative Treatment
How Acquired Epilepsy Is Diagnosed
Your neurologist asks heaps of questions about your seizures. When do they happen? What sets them off? Did anything hurt your brain before they started? They want to know about head injuries and infections. Family history matters too. If someone saw your seizure happen, their description really helps.
They’ll ask about what your seizures look like, how long they last, and how you feel before and after. Your medical background gets reviewed including past illnesses, alcohol or drug use, and current medications. The timeline between when something hurt your brain and when seizures appeared is super important. It helps connect the dots and work out what caused it.
Brain Scans Such as MRI and CT Scan
MRI gives incredibly detailed pictures of your brain. It shows scars, tumours, strokes, and other weird stuff. It’s the best test for finding what’s causing your epilepsy. The scan takes 30 to 60 minutes and sometimes needs contrast dye to highlight certain problems.
CT scans are way faster than MRI. They’re brilliant at spotting fresh bleeding, broken bones, or calcium spots. Emergency departments use CT first usually. Then you get an MRI later for more detail. Sometimes you need both scans, CT for quick answers and MRI for detailed follow-up.
EEG Test to Check Brain Activity
EEG measures the electrical signals in your brain. They stick small sensors on your scalp to do it. This test picks up weird patterns even when you’re not having a seizure. It confirms you’ve got epilepsy and shows what type. The test is completely painless, the electrodes only receive signals, they don’t send anything into your brain.
There are different kinds of EEG. A routine one captures 20 to 30 minutes. A sleep deprived one makes it easier to spot problems because being tired triggers abnormal patterns. Home video EEG records for several days so they can catch an actual seizure happening. The patterns help classify your epilepsy type, which guides medication selection.
How Doctors Confirm Acquired Epilepsy
Your doctor puts all the information together like a puzzle. Brain scans show damage in certain spots. Your history shows seizures happening repeatedly. EEG shows dodgy electrical activity. When all three line up, that confirms you’ve got acquired epilepsy.
Sometimes they work out the cause pretty much straight away. Other times it takes loads of testing. Occasionally they diagnose epilepsy but can’t pin down exactly what caused it.
How Acquired Epilepsy Is Treated
Medicines Used to Control Seizures
Antiseizure meds are the main treatment. They calm down the dodgy electrical activity. They stop seizures from happening or make them way less frequent. About 70 per cent of people get good control with medication.
Your doctor picks meds based on your seizure type and what caused them. They think about your other health stuff too. And what side effects you can handle. Lots of people try a few different ones before finding what works. Some need more than one medication going at once.
Surgery for Certain Brain Problems
Surgery might actually cure it when the cause is something removable. Like a tumour or a specific damaged spot. Surgeons can take out the problem area. They can disconnect dodgy brain regions. Or put in devices that change the electrical activity.
Getting surgery takes tons of checking first. Doctors need proof your seizures come from one spot. That spot needs to be somewhere they can safely get to.
Lifestyle and Daily Care Changes
How you live day to day matters beyond just taking pills. Getting regular sleep helps heaps. Avoiding alcohol and drugs is crucial. Taking your meds at the same time every day keeps levels steady. Managing your stress makes a real difference. Working out what triggers your seizures lets you dodge those situations.
Safety becomes important depending on your seizure type. You might need to change some activities. Swimming alone might not be smart. Maybe hold off on climbing ladders or riding your bike in traffic. It depends on how often your seizures happen.
Treatment for the Underlying Cause
Treating what caused your epilepsy helps when it’s possible. Maybe that means managing blood pressure after a stroke. Treating an infection properly. Taking out a tumour. Getting metabolic problems under control.
The approach depends on what caused it in the first place. After strokes, you need blood pressure control and blood thinners to prevent another one. Brain tumours might need surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. Active infections require antibiotics or antivirals depending on what’s causing them.
Metabolic issues need fixing too. Diabetes control stops dangerous blood sugar swings. Kidney problems might need dialysis. Electrolyte imbalances get sorted through diet changes or supplements. For alcohol-related epilepsy, you need to stop drinking but do it carefully under medical supervision to avoid dangerous withdrawal.
But even when they fix the original issue, the brain damage often stays. So you still need to manage the seizures themselves. Treating the cause prevents further damage though, which gives you the best shot at controlling seizures.
Long Term Management and Follow Up
You’ll probably need ongoing care for quite a while. Regular checkups let your specialist adjust your meds. They watch for side effects too. They check in if things change with your seizures. Some people eventually stop meds after staying seizure free for ages. But that’s a big decision you make carefully with your specialist.
Take the next step toward confident, long-term wellness support with a team that truly understands your journey. Connect with Branchout Wellnessto explore safe, natural, and accessible treatment options tailored to your needs. Book your complimentary 10-minute call today and discover how easy consistent, compassionate care can be.
