Seized

Rating:
Summary: No real answers...but asks the right questions.
Review: After reading this book I don't believe the average TLE sufferer will have any clearer view of the path that lies before them... medication (dilantin,tegretol)may inhibit the seizures but does nothing about the general everyday behavioral changes brought about by a brain scar...brain surgery might,but the risks involved in taking out chunks of your temporal lobes isn't worth the risk (read the book and see)And those behavioral changes are the most interesting part of the book,the presentation of the fact that a brain scar can add to or detract from a person's personality is a gripping one.Some of the speculation is interesting but should in no way be viewed as solid fact...some of it seems a bit too faddish really (one real gripe which has nothing to do with the function of the text but the form...the use of the word "she" instead of "he"...ok,if you have to be "non-gender specific" "politically correct" or "Appropriately inclusive" by using the word "person" that's one thing...but using "she" in the general sense for,say, doctors and then switching back to "he" to talk about,say,criminals in the general sense is just offensive.)Balanced and surprisingly fair in it's discussion of Religious figures such as Muhammed,Moses and Paul,and,in my opinion stops just short of going too far with the speculation on historical figures in which there is no real way to make any logical verification as to whether they had TLE or not.Worth a look,and leaves you wanting to find out more about this interesting subject.

Rating:
Summary: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy has some saving graces after all.
Review: At last, someone has brightly highlighted TLE?s effects on behavior and personality. Eve LaPlante has elucidated in clear and sympathetic language the Geschwind constellation of personality traits often found in patients afflicted with TLE. LaPlante?s SEIZED is a welcome guidepost for those like me who navigate daily life burdened with a fixation on the question of God, a relentless impulse to write, and the other often embarrassing TLE personality ?quirks.?

This well-researched and infinitely readable book also offers an interesting examination of several literary and artistic men of genius who very likely had TLE?Vincent van Gogh, Gustave Flaubert, Lewis Carroll, Marcel Proust, Tennyson and Dostoevsky.

LaPlante?s medical detective work invites the TLE afflicted into a comradery with these artistic luminaries. This is no small consolation for us?we who constantly struggle with auras and feelings of isolation and odd symptoms that resemble psychiatric disease. Blessings upon Eve, in gratitude.


Rating:
Summary: Long-withheld information.
Review: Epilepsy, despite its frequency (perhaps one person in every 250), remains in many instances the unspeakable illness, still dogged with superstition and others' stigma.
The diagnosis of the condition is itself shocking. The lack of information or assistance on the matter continues to add to the problems of the person with the condition.
Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) is, I only now discover after 40 years of attacks, perhaps the most common form. La Plante's description of the many different forms the condition may take tallies closely with my own experience, such as distortion of sound and vision, even loss of memory. I am not, I now discover, some weird, isolated case.
The lack of this information, even in the present day, can easily lead to those diagnosed attempting to conceal its presence for fear of social consequences. Knowing no better, they may suppose themselves insane, or even in the grip of diabolic possession. Simple, detailed information on the matter - such as La Plante provides - does much to comfort, but is exceptionally difficult to find. It is strongly recommended for anyone at any point in life, not just those newly-diagnosed. At least as much, sufferers' families should read the work, for its information and assistance.
The case-studies are of further value still, for they emphasise that those with the condition may still achieve in life. There is no correlation with mental or physical abilities. Historical case-studies make this point well, as do their parallels in the modern day.
A slight failing is La Plante's attempt to discover the condition in semi-mythical (?) figures such as Moses. Evidence in this case (as in St Paul - of whom I hold a similar belief) is quite simply too lacking. However, this in no way detracts from the book's enormous value in aiding TLE sufferers and their families alike in understanding their experiences, and in comforting them with the knowledge that, despite their possible impressions, they are not, after all, alone with this phenomenon. Many others - a very high figure - share the same experience, if in a wide variety of ways.
Don't miss this book.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely Thought Provoking
Review: For several years I have been interested in near death experiences and out of body experiences. I convinced myself that they were real evidence for an afterlife and a soul. I attended IANDS meetings and read all sorts of books about it.

Being interested in science, I always wondered about the mond/body connection. I thought of the mind like a driver operating a car because this is what seemed to be the case from NDE accounts and mystical accounts.

I read Melvin Morse's book "where God Lives" about the right temporal lobe being the "God Spot" and how it gives us access to mystical realities.

Over the years I started to learn more and I started to question the "God Spot" theory. I decided after much study that OBEs were best explained as hallucinations, and they didn't seem to add up.

With the recent discovery of Eve Laplante's book "Seized", I feel like I have been let in on a great hidden secret. I wonder why it took me so long to discover a book like this. I think the answer is that spiritually oriented people would never be able to stomach the implications of the material in this book, and would therefore not be prone to reading it.

I found this book devastating to the theory of survival after death and to near death experiences. This book made Melvin Morses half baked new age pamphlet look silly. I will certainly never look at near death experiences and OBEs the same way again.

But this book was not written about OBEs and NDEs. It was written about temporal lobe epilepsy. I am writing my review oriented towards those who may be interested in the mind/body dillema like me, because TLE is a key to understanding it.

This book is very thorough and well researched. Much of it is speculative concerning who had TLE and how it changed their behavior, but the author gently reminds us of this throughout. I certainly dont accept all of the suggestions of temporal lobe epileptics throughout history at face value. But that is not really the point. Whether or not St. Paul, Joan of arc and Muhammed had their experiences due to the actual pathology called "TEMPORAL LOBE EPILEPSY" is merely a side issue as far as I'm concerned. The book makes a devastating case for these experiences being related to temporal lobe activity whether associated with epilepsy or not, and that is what is important to understand.

This book is essential reading in understanding the mind/body/spirit conundrum. I dont know of anything quite like it ever written that is accessible to lay people.

Rating:
Summary: Funny feelings!
Review: I had a right temporal lobectomy in June,2001. Dr, Joe Smith at "The Medical College" of GA in Augusta performed it. Dr. Don King is my Neurologist. This is a totally awesome book. Thank You Eve. Dr. David Loring had the fun of testing me before & after. Dr. Sherrill Loring introduced me to all of them. What an answer to my prayers all of You. Mrs. Halowen is on the road again in my Monte Carlo. SC Tag.

Rating:
Summary: Artists with epilepsy must read "Seized".
Review: I have been curious why I developed artistic talent and passion for art after an automobile/pedestrian accident caused traumatic brain injury and epilepsy. Eve LaPlante's book is the best verbal description of why seizures and interictal behavioral syndrome cause enhanced artistic productivity.

Rating:
Summary: Hidden Feelings
Review: I thought Eve did an excellent job in describing TLE. I have suffered with the symptoms of "Funny feelings-tingling head to toe,heart feeling like it was going to beat through my chest,an more since the age of 13. Onset of puberty. Catamenial Epilepsy. I am thinking about having the "Gamma Knife Surgery now. I am 40 years old. It is all very scary. This was a great book.

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent work of literary journalism
Review: Seized, by Eve LaPlante, is a magnificent work of literary journalism in the style and spirit of Tracy Kidder and John McPhee. It deals with a common, but still not widely known form of epilepsy that affects as many as a million people in the United States. The author describes ordinary patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), medical pioneers who elucidated the disorder (these descriptions are quite fascinating), as well as a number of famous artists and writers, including Lewis Carroll, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Lear, Gustave Flaubert, and, of course, Fyodor Dostoevsky, who were diagnosed with TLE by medical experts. I suspect that the book would be important reading for anyone afflicted with epilepsy. Some of the ideas in it, for example, that epilepsy can affect personality, creativity, even religious feeling, are controversial, no doubt, and may be troubling to some. Ultimately though, the book is an entertaining, and at times brilliant, description of the mind-body problem.

Rating:
Summary: Siezed: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy as a Medical, Historical, an
Review: The promise of this title is well kept. The title proposes to examine the medical phenomenon of Temporal Lobe Epilpsey (TLE) from a historical and artistic perspective. The author at no time pretends medical expertise. She does, however, present this disease in its varing severity from the viewpoint of a literary person. It has become common in even recognized sientific journals to speculate on diseases which have afflicted well-known historical persons. Eve LaPlante is proposing that some famous people were aflicted with TLE and that this disease was intimately involved in their productive life.

Eve LaPlante's thesis is eloquently presented. The book reads well and is a valuable addition to the expositions on the subject.

I found the book a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Disorganized and confused
Review: There is not much to read on epilepsy, that I have found, that relates to the experience of it. That is why this book is worth looking at. Unfortunately the author is disorganized and not analytical in her arguments, in fact I am not sure what they are. By the end of the book she has attributed every aspect of human experience to epilepsy. She is confused about the difference between epilepsy and brain activity. So what if all human experiences are influenced by different neurological predispositions? That is not epilepsy, but a developmental fact. Several times I lost track of what she was arguing about, the chapters are too long and unorganized. I think she lost track too, fascinated by the possibility that brain and mind are the same thing.
Still, several of the cases are interesting, as is the view of how neurology and psychiatry compete for the same territory. But poorly written, organized and better read with an inclination to lightly scanning for interesting parts than digestion and analysis.