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Suzanne O'Sullivan is an Irish neurologist. She works in Britain and earned an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck College , University of London (2015). Her first book, It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness, won the Wellcome Book Prize in 2016. (Bowker Author Biography)

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This book was excellent for what it was, but was not what I had hoped for. I saw it listed on the group of nominees for the Royal Society’s best science book of the year. Based on the nomination a d the title, I thought it would be something akin to oliver sacks, exploring unusual neurological disorders or “House” going through the diagnostic steps to solve a mystery. Instead, you already know that everyone in the book has a psychosomatic disorder,or, to use the more modern term functional neurological disorder. The author’s exploration of how culture contributed to these disorders and of how our western society has a tendency to overmedicalize experiences was interesting, but not what I had hoped for… (més)
 
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cspiwak | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Mar 6, 2024 |
This book simply consists of descriptions of the symptoms of patients with epilepsy: these patients are several of the author’s; she is a neurologist.

The symptoms are generally extremely strange and dramatic; sometimes it is not at first clear that the patient has epilepsy at all.

The author is very honest about admitting her uncertainty about her patients’ diagnoses and how often she has no clue about what is wrong with them.

Wahid is 25 and has strange attacks that wake him at night. He sits up, grunts, points at the wall, and looks scared.

Cherylin wakes in peculiar places, with no idea how she got there, She is fearful and disorientated.

She counts and shouts numbers.

Wahid and Cherylin both have what are called focal seizures but they come from different areas of the brain.

Most seizures last at most a few minutes.

Amy feels as though she’s sliding downhill, and that she’s sucked down the road. These types of fits are called Alice in Wonderland experiences by the medical community.

And in fact Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, may well have suffered from epilepsy, He had two episodes of loss of consciousness that may have been due to epilepsy.

After being told that there was a possibility he could be fired from his job as school janitor, Donal had his first attack.

He saw little men about a foot tall run from behind a plant pot to a filing cabinet. They looked like the seven dwarfs, seven small brightly coloured men. What he saw was “”very, very real”, but he realizes that he is seeing things: they are cartoon characters.

Donal’s MRI scan and EEG were normal, as with many, perhaps most, of the author’s epileptic patients.

The author places her patients in the epilepsy centre where they can be observed by being videoed around the clock. Most patients stay for five days, some stay for two weeks.

Every video telemetry patient wears a minimum of 5 electrodes on their head.

Donal’s cartoon visitors may have been a memory, or perhaps he conjured them from his imagination.

His seizures went away with medication.

Maya has had epilepsy since she was ten years old. Her only experience of her seizures is waking up from them. Sometimes she finds herself lying on the ground, or misses some time.

She “just loses it for a while”. She’s just not there. But sometimes she falls over and stops breathing.

Maya had tried six different tablets, but the best they did was reduce the number of attacks.

Some drugs have horrendous side effects.

Surgeons removed a piece of Maya’s brain, and she is now totally free of seizures.

We are given details of several of the author’s patients. Some got cured, some didn’t and one died.

Scientific details are given regarding which parts of the brain are involved. All the cases diverge from each other.

The solutions to the seizures are first and foremost drugs, but also surgery, though this is generally a final option, as the risks are severe, since anything can happen as a result of brain surgery.

The book is well-written and fascinating since all the cases are different and mostly have strange/dramatic symptoms.

I previously had a boyfriend with epilepsy (which resulted from brain surgery at an early age). He took strong medicine but still had fits. I advised him to take a B-complex pill together with magnesium, which greatly reduced the number of his seizures, though he continued to take his medicine.

This was how I knew that magnesium might work for me, when I myself later had psycho-motor seizures.

My seizures happened when on the point of sleep. When falling sleep on the train on my way home from work I heard loud bangs as though bombs were being thrown on the train, but I was the only one that heard them.One time in bed, I saw fire coming from the wall, but since I had recently moved into the flat, I thought that this must be due to a fault in the electrical installations. Once the whole inside of my brain was lit up.

I did not consult a doctor but began to take a strong magnesium tablet together with a strong B-vitamin complex pill. The seizures continued so I consulted a naturopath who advised me to double the amount of magnesium, which I did; consequently the seizures stopped.

This was years go; today the only thing remaining of the seizures is a few clicks every nght when I’m on the point of falling asleep; they seem to come from a bedside lamp or another electrical installation.

However, since magnesium and B-vitamins worked for my boyfriend and later myself, I am sure they might work for others. The author, being a doctor, of course, apparently had no knowledge of the effectiveness of magnesium and/or B-vitamins, (I believe it is B6 that is the crucial B-vitamin, but B-vitamins should not be taken separately, as this might create an extra need for the other B-vitamins not taken.

But since drugs are so potentially harmful, in my view it would be beneficial to try natural supplements first. Note that I am not suggesting that people stop taking their medication.

To sum up, this is the only book I’ve read about epilepsy and I found it fascinating to read about the various forms of fits, including hallucinations. I recommend that you read the book.
… (més)
 
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IonaS | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | Jan 16, 2022 |
Early in her book on outbreaks of mass psychosomatic illness around the world, neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan observes that “disease impresses people; illness with no evidence of disease does not. Psychological illness, psychosomatic and functional symptoms [that is, symptoms which indicate problems with how the nervous system is working] are the least respected of medical problems.” She proceeds to look at cases in various countries, including Sweden, Kazakhstan, the Miskito Coast of Central America, Columbia, (the US embassy in) Cuba, Guyana, and small-town USA. Many of these cases involve children and teenage girls, and most involve people on the periphery of the dominant culture: ethnic minorities and groups suspicious of the government or caught between two worlds, the traditional and the modern.

Drawing mostly on anthropology, social psychology, and philosophy, the author makes a strong case for the ways in which society and culture shape illness and the means by which extreme symptoms, which can’t be attributed to physical pathology, communicate important messages about conflicts within a group or culture. O’Sullivan says mass hysteria/conversion disorder/psychosomatic or neurological disorder—the phenomenon goes by a variety of interchangeable names—are as “real” as disease in which there is discernible abnormality in the body. She rightly rejects Cartesian mind-body dualism, pointing out that “mind” is a function of the brain, that it too is created from biology and is “not an intangible independent entity.” However, she does not explain how the minds/brains of groups of people actually create illness—that is, how problems with the functioning of their nervous systems cause mass hysteria. There is vague, unsatisfying mention of neural circuitry and of patients paying too much attention to the “white noise” of their bodies, misinterpreting that noise, perseverating on symptoms observed and reinforcing their misinterpretations. It is not clear how all this ties in with the mass events that O’Sullivan is interested in. Noticeably lacking is a discussion of the mechanisms of social contagion. Also absent are footnotes and sources.

While I found The Sleeping Beauties an interesting and stimulating read, it was not a wholly satisfying one. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC.
… (més)
½
 
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fountainoverflows | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Jul 3, 2021 |
Brill, ace, other positive adjectives, read it. It's very well written and informative.

As someone who has now been ill for years and has only started to improve in the last few months having finally accepted the psychological factors in my illness this has been a very helpful book. Though that's still seems very embarrassing to say, so to clarify, my illness has a purely physical external cause and is in no way influenced by my mind, goddammit. ffs, zomg, this author knows nothing, 1 star, how dare she mock me and my illness by saying I'm mad. etc. the internet says there is some obscure misunderstood science that will absolve me of all responsibility, why has my Dr not seen it.… (més)
 
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mjhunt | Hi ha 4 ressenyes més | Jan 22, 2021 |

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