seizures • News April 2021 | Lighthouse News Daily

Despite Sudoku’s reputation of helping the mind stay fit, a 25-year-old German patient develops seizures every time he tires to solve the puzzle. The oddity puzzled scientists statewide for several years, but a University of Munich team solves medical enigma of man who got seizures from Sudoku.

Yet, the patient was not always like that. His problems started after a skiing incident which trapped him under the snow following an avalanche. The event happened in November 2008, when the man was skiing with a friend. Fortunately, the friend was a paramedic and managed to rescue him in time.

The patient needed CPR as the avalanche knocked him unconscious. Emergency crews found that the man had also a ruptured spleen and severely injured his hip. Moreover, while he was under the snow, his body was deprived of oxygen for 15 minutes.

As a result, the patient’s body developed a rare syndrome that triggers muscle twitches. The twitches occurred whenever he talked and walked. While in hospital, his left arm started to trouble him. His arms’ muscles began contracting and jerking really quickly in a seizure-like manner. The condition is called clonic seizure and physicians prescribed him epilepsy drugs to seize it.

But several weeks later when he was moved into another facility for recovery, another problem occurred. When he was focusing on a Sudoku puzzle clonic seizures in his left arm recurred.

Doctors realized that there was something wrong with Sudoku when they saw that the man had no reaction to other mentally challenging activities such as reading a book or solving a math problem.

Seizures emerged only when he tried to solve the numerical grid puzzles. Doctors learned from the man had a very vivid 3-D imagination that helped him put the numbers in a correct sequence.

Researchers explained that when the patient was oxygen deprived his inhibitory fibers, died in the process. These fibers reined in brain signaling in the area responsible for 3-D imagination. But when the patient activated this region of the brain there was an overreaction which led to clonic seizures in his left limb.

Scientists confirmed their hypothesis when they asked the man to concentrate even more on activating his 3-D imagination. When he did it, clonic seizures became even more intense.

“When he stopped this 3D imagination, the seizures stopped immediately,”

said Dr. Berend Feddersen, senior researcher that helped the team solve the strange medical case. As a result, the patient was advised to give up Sudoku.

A research paper on the case was published Oct. 19 in the journal JAMA Neurology.
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In a new warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Chantix, a medication prescribed to help people stop smoking, could change the way the body responds to alcohol. The warning went on to say that in rare instances, the combination could result in seizures.

Two years ago, roughly 1.2 million people in the United States alone were prescribed Chantix. However, the manufacturer, Pfizer, provided the FDA with a case series where people reported adverse reactions to the drug.

Chantix first received FDA approval in 2006 after clinical trials showed that compared to a placebo, people stopped smoking for up to one year. However, among complaints of having vivid dreams and even nightmares, there were reported cases of people experiencing seizures.

Every year in the US, roughly 443,000 people die from direct smoking and an additional 49,000 from secondhand smoke. Because smoking is so dangerous for the development of cancer and cardiovascular disease, Chantix does offer some degree of protection but after the new report, the medication will be relabeled to advise patients of potential risks.

From the case series offered by Pfizer along with the FAERS database, experts with the FDA discovered that many of the adverse reactions, as well as seizures, involved people taking Chantix who also consumed alcohol. It appears that the drug somehow lowers tolerance for alcohol to include memory loss, uncharacteristic and even aggressive behavior, and a higher level of intoxication.

Of the people who suffered seizures while taking Chantix, none had a prior history of seizures or any kind of seizure disorder. Interestingly, the highest occurrence of seizures happened within the first month of being treated with Chantix.

Studies conducted by Pfizer were observational and data was from randomized controlled clinical trials. While specific risks were identified, higher risk of neuropsychiatric side effects was not noted.

Based on the new findings, the FDA is not suggesting that patients prescribed Chantix avoid or greatly reduce the amount of alcohol consumed. This warning will remain in effect until the full extent of the relationship between Chantix and alcohol tolerance can be determined.

The FDA also issued advice to patients to notify their physicians if they have a history of seizures, consume alcohol, or has a history of mental health prior to taking Chantix.

Team Solves Medical Enigma of Man who Got Seizures from Sudoku

FDA Warning: Seizure Risk from Chantix and Alcohol

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