Expert: Ronald Levy, M.D. - 3/11/2010

Question
My brother ( 38 ) just underwent a routine shoulder surgery on Feb 19, 2010. He was in the process of being discharged and had a seizure lasting 5-6 miuntes, full body shakes, lose of speech, eyes tearing up. He was medicated with clonopin, he continued to have seizures (gazing)  for the next 6-8 hrs. A CT scan showed a black spot on the left frontal lobe. He has had several small seizures. Last evening he had 7-8 more starting with the full body shake to the gazing seizure. He did consume 6-8 beers. He had an MRI showing normal results. Is there possibility that the anethesia instagated this.  He is a other wise healthy man. We have had dr's contradict each other regarding "what" started theses episodes

Answer
I can tell you that the anesthesia did not instigate this. While something could certainly have happened to him while under anesthesia, the anesthesia itself did not cause this. There a number of causes for this (most of which I don't know about) but could include such things as an embolic event, a pre-existing condition that just manifested coincidently, strke, etc. There is nothing from the anesthetic side that could have caused this.

Ronald Levy, MD
Professor of Anesthesiology
UTMB-Galveston