Cardiac arrest caused by a seizure

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I'm curious what the relationship is here. I recently had a client pass away due to an MI. Minutes before that she had a seizure. I am wondering how the two are related. He likely had low potassium and magnesium as well. He was managed with anti-epileptics but was non compliant and had missed a few days. He apparently fell and hit head a few days prior.

I am just gonna throw it out there, cause I just can't help myself (HAHA)

Was this patient an alcoholic? Going through withdrawal? Hence the seizures, the cardiac issues, etc?

And this is funny how?

Specializes in ICU.

When someone has a seizure, they can stop breathing. When they stop breathing, oxygen is not longer going to the heart and the cells will die. It must have been one massive seizure. This person also had several triggers going on at the same time so it's no surprise that a seizure occurred. From all the information you gave, this was a disaster waiting to happen. It's so sad really. An epileptic should never miss a dose of medication.

I myself have been seizure free for 5 years. One of my seizures did cause a blood clot in my carotid artery which broke off and traveled to my lung giving me a PE. Now that I have been seizure free for 5 years, my neurologist has been slowly weaning me off my meds. Very slowly, to see how I tolerate. You can't just miss doses like that. Not only are you removing your protection from your seizures, the person is going through a withdrawl of a medication which is also a trigger for seizures. I also had a seizure while pregnant and the biggest concern was did oxygen get cut off from my baby. During a seizure they almost always stop breathing at some point, it just depends on whether a few seconds or for minutes.

My guess is, they won't know until autopsy what exactly happened because there are many factors at play here and pretty much anything could have been a cause for the other. I hate to see that epilepsy has taken another life. I have a very good friend who lost both of her brothers to epilepsy. It made her an only child. Epilepsy is just so complex and you can't determine which channels in the brain are causing the seizures so it's hit or miss on the medications until you find one that works.

My hope is that someday some kind of machine can be built that can look directly into a person's brain that can look at the neurons and how they are acting during a seizure. The low potassium could be the clue there which could have caused both the seizure and the MI. And that could have been related to the alcoholism.

And yes he was an alcoholic but had detoxen in hospital for 7 days. He was only out of hospital 3 days when he seized and died.

Unfortunately, he may have begun (and stopped) drinking again. And did he have a history of seizures, or did he get seizure meds due to his history of seizing when withdrawing--again important to continue with the medication for withdrawal past a 7 day mark, especially if long term use. Couple that with his mag and K in the toilet, and that is a cardiac breeding ground for nothing nice.

In any event, I would think that his alcoholism/ withdrawal is what led to his demise.

And this is funny how?

Not funny, just that my first and always seems to be reaction is some sort of addiction/psych process.......

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