What is Epilepsy?
Epilepsy is the tendency to have recurrent seizures. It is the same thing as a seizure disorder. A single seizure does not constitute epilepsy.
How Long Do Seizures last for?
- 30-60 Seconds
Typical Seicure
- 30 minutes
Status Epilepticus
Epilepsy indicators:
- Certain medications
- Excess caffeine
- Not eating well
- Hormonal Changes
- Specific time of day or night
- Sleep Deprivation
- Fever or other illnesses
- Flashing light or patterns
- Alcohol or Drug use
- Stress
Treatment & Care
Medications for epilepsy are mainstays in controlling epileptic seizures. But surgical procedures are another dimension in treatment. Learn about your options.
Treatment
The type of treatment prescribed will depend on several factors, including the frequency and severity of the seizures and the person’s age, overall health, and medical history.
This is one of the oldest treatments for epilepsy, and helps lessen seizures.
Biofeedback, melatonin, and large vitamin doses can help. Read on.
Learn the risks and benefits of this epilepsy surgery.
There is no cure for epilepsy, but medications may help keep symptoms under control.
Treatments for epilepsy have come a long way in the last decade. Doctors have more than twice as many epilepsy medications to choose from than they did 10 years ago.
There are a wide number of medications available for treating epilepsy in children, and advances in the past years have made a difference.
Sometimes, brain seizures begin in a vital area of the brain — for example, in areas that control movement, feeling, language, or memory.
A temporal lobe resection is a surgery performed on the brain to control seizures. In this procedure, brain tissue in the temporal lobe is resected, or cut away, to remove the seizure focus.
Lesionectomy may be an option for people whose epilepsy is linked to a defined lesion and whose seizures are not controlled by medication.
This procedure generally is used only for people with epilepsy who do not experience improvement in their condition after taking many different medications and who have severe, uncontrollable seizures.
A corpus callosotomy, sometimes called split-brain surgery, may be performed in people with the most extreme and uncontrollable forms of epilepsy, when frequent seizures affect both sides of the brain.
An extratemporal cortical resection is an operation to resect, or cut away, brain tissue that contains a seizure focus.
With the use of medication, people with essential tremor may see improvement in their ability to control their tremor and improvement in activities such as drinking from a cup or using food utensils.
Care
To prevent injuries during a seizure, these tips will help.
Has it been awhile since you’ve had a seizure? Talk to your doctor about stopping medication.
Taking epilepsy medication after a first or second or febrile seizure may also help prevent recurrent seizures.