Seized

I have had temporal lobe epilepsy for as long as I can remember. My seizures started when I was a baby. I have always had tonic clonic seizures, too, but not until I was an adult did I even learn that the other unusual experiences that I was having were complex partial and simple partial seizures. I was afraid to ask other people if they also had these strange experiences, but they didn't appear to. After I was diagnosed... Read Full Review

If you are looking to explore the origins and sometimes bizarre characteristics of temporal lobe epilepsy, this is the book for you. Eve LaPlante takes the reader through territory seldom delt with in other publications about temporal lobe epilepsy. A historical perspective gives a somewhat detailed glimpse into the lives of notible figures such as Van Gogh, Dostoevsky, Tennyson, Lewis Carroll and other famous people thought... Read Full Review

At last, someone has brightly highlighted TLE's effects on behavior and personality. Eve LaPlante has elucidated in clear and sympathetic language the Geschwind constellation of personality traits often found in patients afflicted with TLE. LaPlante's SEIZED is a welcome guidepost for those like me who navigate daily life burdened with a fixation on the question of God, a relentless impulse to write, and the other often... Read Full Review

LaPlante's Seized calls to mind Berton Roueche's marvelous Annals of Medicine column in the old New Yorker, in which he would discuss classic examples of medical detective work. Seized describes the discovery of a particular form of epilepsy by medical researchers, and the study of the disease's effects on behavior, personality, even sexuality (some patients have seizures that include sexual orgasms). The discussion of famous... Read Full Review

Seized, by Eve LaPlante, is a magnificent work of literary journalism in the style and spirit of Tracy Kidder and John McPhee. It deals with a common, but still not widely known form of epilepsy that affects as many as a million people in the United States. The author describes ordinary patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), medical pioneers who elucidated the disorder (these descriptions are quite fascinating), as well... Read Full Review