By Jean Cibula, MD, FAES Well, this isn’t quite the item that I had planned to write. My original intention was to talk about diets for the New Year. Obviously, I procrastinated. Maybe next time. I’m sure everyone is following the news about COVID- 19. We at the University of Florida…
Traveling to Movement Disorder Specialist I was excited to be on a Sunday road trip on December 2, 2018, to Gainesville, Florida to meet Dr. Michael Okun, world-renowned movement disorder specialist. In 2002, Dr. Okun and Dr. Kelly Foote formed the University of Florida Health Center for…
By Jean Cibula, MD, FAES On May 9, 2019, the Google doodle (the picture or animation on the Google search page) highlighted Dr Lucy Wills, a British hematologist who first identified folic acid. Folic acid is one of the B vitamin family (also known as vitamin B9). She studied macrocytic (large…
We’re in the midst of cold and flu season, and a very common question is what medications are safe to take with seizure medications if you have a respiratory bug. In general, fever and lack of sleep will be the biggest problems for people who are ill and have epilepsy.
I am responsible for preparing for first visit with my movement disorder specialist to help achieve successful results. According to the Davis Phinney Foundation, Every Victory Counts manual, “being prepared for your medical visit is by far one of the most important and least performed self-care tasks.”…
By Jean Cibula, MD, FAES November usually means the end of the hot weather and the start of the holiday season. It is also Epilepsy Awareness Month, and a time for talking about how epilepsy affects people’s lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 3.5 million Americans have…
Many neurologic diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis disrupt sleep. Sleep problems also can impact the brain: multiple research studies suggest, for example, that people with some types of sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing stops repeatedly through the night because of an obstruction of the airways,…
By Jean Cibula, MD, FAES “Does stress cause seizures?” I’m often asked this by patients and their families. Many of my patients also report more seizures when they’re stressed. Since stress makes everything worse, can we measure its effect on seizure count and severity? It turns out that stress and…
