Sean Paul song gave her seizures
BY RICHARD WEIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, January 18th 2008, 4:00 AM
Certain songs really got to Stacey Gayle - and she had surgery to make them stop.
For four years, Gayle, 25, who has epilepsy had unpredictable epileptic seizures despite taking a regimen of medications. Then in 2006, she figured out that music, and specifically Sean Paul's chart topper "Temperature," could set off the attacks.
"I don't know why Sean Paul was giving me seizures," she said Thursday at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, where she underwent the operation. "But as soon as the beat came on, it just triggered a seizure. I'd go somewhere and I'd be like, 'Don't play that song!'"
She later discovered that other tunes, including Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls," could do the same. Gayle, who lives with her mom in Rosedale, Queens, had to quit her Manhattan job as a bank customer service rep, drop out of college and stop going to church - where she sang in the choir.
Tired of living in fear, she sought out Dr. Ashesh Mehta, a neurosurgeon and director of epilepsy surgery at the medical center.
Mehta said at first he was skeptical of Gayle's claims.
"It's extremely rare," Mehta said of "musicogenic" epilepsy. "There are only 50 to 100 cases ever reported of this disorder."
But he was convinced after Gayle gave herself a seizure by listening to Paul's song.
On Oct. 3, doctors removed a 3-inch portion of her right front temporal lobe, the same area that processes music.
The operation worked. Gayle said she has returned to singing in her church choir and attending York College, where she is studying to become a teacher. She said she waited a month after her surgery before she worked up the courage to listen to "Temperature."
"I think his music is awesome," she said. "Now I can see why everyone liked this song."
rweir@nydailynews.com
Source: New York Daily News
Sean Paul song gave her seizures
BY RICHARD WEIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, January 18th 2008, 4:00 AM
Certain songs really got to Stacey Gayle - and she had surgery to make them stop.
For four years, Gayle, 25, who has epilepsy had unpredictable epileptic seizures despite taking a regimen of medications. Then in 2006, she figured out that music, and specifically Sean Paul's chart topper "Temperature," could set off the attacks.
"I don't know why Sean Paul was giving me seizures," she said Thursday at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, where she underwent the operation. "But as soon as the beat came on, it just triggered a seizure. I'd go somewhere and I'd be like, 'Don't play that song!'"
She later discovered that other tunes, including Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls," could do the same. Gayle, who lives with her mom in Rosedale, Queens, had to quit her Manhattan job as a bank customer service rep, drop out of college and stop going to church - where she sang in the choir.
Tired of living in fear, she sought out Dr. Ashesh Mehta, a neurosurgeon and director of epilepsy surgery at the medical center.
Mehta said at first he was skeptical of Gayle's claims.
"It's extremely rare," Mehta said of "musicogenic" epilepsy. "There are only 50 to 100 cases ever reported of this disorder."
But he was convinced after Gayle gave herself a seizure by listening to Paul's song.
On Oct. 3, doctors removed a 3-inch portion of her right front temporal lobe, the same area that processes music.
The operation worked. Gayle said she has returned to singing in her church choir and attending York College, where she is studying to become a teacher. She said she waited a month after her surgery before she worked up the courage to listen to "Temperature."
"I think his music is awesome," she said. "Now I can see why everyone liked this song."
rweir@nydailynews.com
Source: New York Daily News
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