Question
A three-year-old child frequently has seizures after crying and shouting, lasting about ten minutes. The parents initially thought it might be due to calcium deficiency and gave him calcium tablets. But now, two months later, the condition is still the same. Is it a precursor to epilepsy?
Answer
Seizures are one of the main symptoms of epilepsy, but they are not exclusive to epilepsy. The disease is mainly caused by abnormal discharge of brain cells, leading to abnormal brain function and sudden onset of symptoms such as falling to the ground, loss of consciousness, whole-body convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and eyes rolling upwards. Of course, seizures can also be caused by other diseases, such as hysterical seizures, hypocalcemic seizures, pediatric febrile convulsions, and hypoglycemic convulsions, all of which do not fall under the category of epilepsy. Therefore, not all seizures are caused by epilepsy. Additionally, some types of epilepsy patients do not have seizure symptoms, such as absent seizures, temporal lobe epilepsy, abdominal epilepsy, and headache epilepsy. Therefore, seizures cannot be equated with epilepsy.