Not so Trivial Brain Seizure Trivia

When you smell a unique food item (when there isn’t any of said food item around)—such as the SpaghettiO’s my sister smelled when she was hiking this January—as you are outside doing extreme exercise, you are having an olfactory hallucination considered by the experts to indicate a loss of body temperature (a.k.a. hypothermia).

But when you smell toast burning (and there isn’t any toast burning), or you smell something else burning (when nothing else is burning) when you are having a stroke, the pros identify this as an olfactory hallucination occurring as part of an epileptic phenomenon.

In the same respect, then, does one having an epileptic episode smell anything out of the ordinary? Two of my dearest friends have acute [my word] epilepsy, and never mentioned this sensory phenomenon. Then again, two cases do not a neurological disorder epidemic make, or ample evidence provide, considering how, according to the WHO, at any given time around the world, as many as 50 million people have epilepsy.

Equally fascinating are the numbers of brain disorders in the -lepsy (seizure/attack) categories—among them the following [with word origin and/or definition where possible]:

ablepsy: attack of blindness

analepsy: [1913] species of epileptic seizure (a phrase I am aware is redundant)

anosognosic epilepsy: disorder with attacks the sufferer is unaware of experiencing

catalepsy: attack(s) of uncharacteristic bodily or facial positioning (as in catatonic schizophrenia)

diabolepsy: attack of devil-possession

epilepsy: from Greek, epilambanein, “to seize/attack”; repeated attacks of severely increased electrical activity in brain

gelotolepsy: attack of muscle tone loss brought on by sudden/excessive laughter

hypnolepsy: disorder characterized by sudden/recurrent attacks of drowsiness/compulsion to sleep (see narcolepsy)

hysterocatalepsy: composite of attacks of “hysteria” and attacks of catalepsy

hysteroepilepsy: composite of attacks of hysteria and epileptic fits

hysteronarcolepsy: composite of attacks of hysteria and sudden sleep

matutinal epilepsy: attacks of epilepsy which occur in morning (upon waking)

narcolepsy: attack(s) of uncontrollable drowsiness or compulsion to sleep

nympholepsy: [ancient] attacks of hysteria/frenzy, purportedly induced by nymphs

psycholepsy [a.k.a. psychic seizure]: sudden attack of depression/feelings of hopelessness

pyknolepsy: recurrent series of attacks of absence episodes [associated with grand mal and petit mal seizures in prepubertal, epileptic children]

theolepsy: sudden attack of deity possession/inspiration

And while organolepsy is in the science world and has to do with plants and whatnot, it also suggests something to do with the nose and mouth organs and their sensory functions…, so I trust it may make it into the -lepsy nomenclature any day now.


References include but are not limited to the following:

MedicineNet.com. MedTerms.

WordInfo. …Words for Our Modern Age.

World Health Organization [WHO]. Fact Sheet. Epilepsy: Aetiogy, Epidemiology, and Prognosis.