Sporadically, epileptic seizures are accompanied by a transient and non-infectious leukocytosis (i.e., elevation of the white blood cell count) of unclear clinical significance. This phenomenon rarely occurs after self-limiting, harmless, complex partial seizures, but it is common after potentially dangerous epileptic convulsions.

But only some such convulsions result in leukocytoses. No one knows why.

However, several studies show that the magnitude of these leukocytoses is linked to patients’ clinical outcomes so that the most dangerous seizures exhibit the highest leukocytoses. Recent work even suggests these leukocytoses are linked to the degree of breathing abnormalities developed during or after epileptic convulsions.

Could the leukocyte count after seizures be used as a harbinger of dangerous blood flow changes inside the lungs that result in pulmonary edema (i.e., a fluid leak into the lung’s air spaces)? If so, could both leukocytoses and pulmonary edema after seizures be induced by the mammalian diving response?