ECG or EEG?
Have you heard of ECG? No, it has nothing to do with an egg. In medicine, ECG stands for Electrocardiogram. It is commonly used for diagnosing heart conditions. For the brain, we have EEG - Electroencephalogram , which is used to detect any abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Since seizures are caused by, or are a symptom of such abnormal electrical activity, neurologists always send patients with suspect epilepsy for an EEG scan as a first step.
So far, I have had two EEG scans done, first in Toa Payoh Hospital where I was first sent for my epilepsy condition, and then at the Specialist Clinic at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). Compared to what we have today, EEG is rather crude, if I may say so. First they stick on something like chewing gum (its not chewing gum, of course, but electrodes covered with the gooey stuff so that it can stick on) onto various places on the scalp. They then connect these to wires that comes out of a machine. These allowed the electrical activity in my brain to be monitored and measured. It wasn't uncomfortable at all, and I am conscious during the whole procedure. Because of my first experience, I wasn't all that certain that this second EEG was any use, but it was the specialist's order, so who was I to disagree? True enough, it wasn't very useful. The diagnosis that was arrived at was that my epilepsy is idiopathic - of unknown cause. I was relieved that this didn't mean that it was epilepsy because I was an idiot.
It was to take a technology far more advanced to discover what was ailing me all this while, but that's a story more than ten years later.
So far, I have had two EEG scans done, first in Toa Payoh Hospital where I was first sent for my epilepsy condition, and then at the Specialist Clinic at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). Compared to what we have today, EEG is rather crude, if I may say so. First they stick on something like chewing gum (its not chewing gum, of course, but electrodes covered with the gooey stuff so that it can stick on) onto various places on the scalp. They then connect these to wires that comes out of a machine. These allowed the electrical activity in my brain to be monitored and measured. It wasn't uncomfortable at all, and I am conscious during the whole procedure. Because of my first experience, I wasn't all that certain that this second EEG was any use, but it was the specialist's order, so who was I to disagree? True enough, it wasn't very useful. The diagnosis that was arrived at was that my epilepsy is idiopathic - of unknown cause. I was relieved that this didn't mean that it was epilepsy because I was an idiot.
It was to take a technology far more advanced to discover what was ailing me all this while, but that's a story more than ten years later.
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