Dr. Claire McCarthy is a primary care physician and the Medical Communications Editor at Children’s Hospital Boston. Take a look at her blog archive and follow her on Twitter @drClaire.
What a whirlwind of a year. Since launching this blog in July, we’ve had more than 230,000 visitors, many of whom have left thought-provoking comments on our posts.
We’ve enjoyed bringing you personal stories and expert insight about current pediatric health topics, and we hope you continue reading us in 2010.
What were our readers most interested in this year? Our most widely read stories range from a video series about defeating a milk allergy to a news report about the discredited Baby Einstein videos. Did you miss any of our most popular posts? We revisit them below. Full story »
For nearly 10 years, Kate suffered from severe epileptic seizures and lived with life-altering side effects from her many medications. In this video and in her first-person story below, Kate shares her story about how an experimental treatment has changed her life.
Kate’s story
Thanksgiving of 1999 was going to be a great day. My mom was coming home from the hospital after having surgery, and our entire family would be together for a big dinner that afternoon. It was shaping up to be a great holiday—that is, until I had my first seizure. I had the seizure at about 7 a.m. but I don’t remember anything except waking up in the local emergency room with a terrible headache and not being able to move my left side. Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on October 26, 2009
Last night, Frances Jensen, MD, senior associate in Neurology, was featured in a piece on 60 Minutes about the prevalence of epilepsy and the importance of funding research into its cure. Watch the piece here, then keep reading below as Jensen describes how epilepsy is often overlooked as a public health problem and how researchers like her are trying to stop it in its tracks. Also watch below as Jensen shows Katie Couric what an epilepsy looks like from a molecular perspective.
Last night, research by myself and my team was featured on 60 Minutes in a wonderful story about the impact that epilepsy has on the people with it and the challenges of getting the public – including the agencies that fund research – to pay the disease the attention it deserves.
I was excited to be part of this story because raising awareness about epilepsy is important on several fronts. Despite this disease being the third most common brain disorder (after stroke and dementia), the public, and even some health care providers, have little knowledge about it. Epilepsy is defined as repeated seizures, and this can happen at any point in a person’s lifetime due to an inherited condition, an illness or a brain injury of any kind. Seizures are due to out-of-control brain cell activity in a part(or even the whole) brain. Medications, and in severe cases even surgery, are needed to dampen this over-activity in order to prevent more seizures. Full story »
UPDATE: Watch the 60 Minutes piece and read Frances Jensen’s post about why funding epilepsy research is so important.
Don’t forget to watch 60 Minutes tonight, featuring the epilepsy research of Children’s Frances Jensen, MD. You can watch a preview here. If you use Twitter, please help us promote the episode by tweeting “http://bit.ly/1t2wdK – tune in to 60 Minutes to see Children’s Hospital docs talk about epilepsy.”
Epilepsy is a disease that remains stubbornly bewildering—to the nearly three million Americans who have it and the doctors who treat it. In some cases, it can be traced to an underlying disease, injury or brain malformation. But in most cases, its origins are a mystery. And while many new epilepsy medications have come on the market, the percentage of people whose seizures can be controlled by drugs remains stubbornly unchanged: two thirds.
Read about one such patient in Children’s Epilepsy Program who had brain surgery to stop her seizures.
Do you have a Children's Hospital Boston story you'd like heard? By sharing your Children's story you can be a great source of inspiration and encouragement to families who are going through similar situations. And it’s a great way to find support by connecting with others. Share your story today »
ile many new epilepsy medications have come on the market, the percentage of people whose seizures can be controlled by drugs remains stubbornly unchanged: two thirds.
