Question
A 12-year-old girl frequently loses consciousness during epileptic seizures. What is going on?
Answer
During epileptic seizures, patients often experience loss of consciousness and generalized convulsions, with severe cases resulting in complete loss of consciousness, cessation of breathing, and whole-body convulsions. Epileptic seizures come in various types, with the most common being generalized tonic-clonic seizures, which are characterized by: sudden loss of consciousness, falling to the ground, often leading to injuries, accompanied by upward eye rolling, frothing at the mouth, temporary cessation of breathing, purple face color, stiffness and clonic spasms in all limbs. After 1 to 2 minutes, the spasms stop. After regaining consciousness, patients often have no memory of the entire process but commonly feel muscle soreness, headache, fatigue, and weakness.