What is Epilepsy?
Overview
Symptoms and physical signs help a doctor to diagnose epilepsy. EEG, CT, or MRI readings are similar (MRI). Diagnose epilepsy and seizures. Different illnesses cause different types of seizures. Epilepsy causes seizures. Seizures are electrical bursts that interrupt brain function.
- Contraction and relaxation of muscles.
- Tight muscles.
- Constipation/incontinence
- Alternate breaths.
- Blanked.
- Symptoms abound.
Epilepsy often begins in childhood or the elderly.
It’s often lifelong, but sometimes improves.
Epilepsy causes unprovoked seizures. A seizure is abnormal brain electrical activity. Two or more unprovoked seizures indicate epilepsy.
Epilepsy can affect anyone, however it most often affects children and the elderly. Epilepsy is more common in men due to alcohol consumption and brain trauma.
Epilepsy causes
In most of the cases the cause of epilepsy not identifiable. This counts for 90 percent cases of epilepsy. Brain disorders can induce epilepsy. These identifiable causes are only 10 percent cases of epilepsy. These are
- Migraine.
- Tumor.
- Parasites, viruses (influenza, dengue, Virus), and bacteria can infect the brain.
- Brain or head trauma.
- Brain oxygen loss
- Genetic diseases
- Neurological illnesses
Epilepsy treatment may reduce or eliminate seizures.
Your treatment plan depends on your symptoms’ intensity.
- health
- response to therapy
Does epilepsy cause brain damage?
Most seizures don’t damage the brain. Uncontrolled seizures can be dangerous. Because of this, every seizure lasting over 5 minutes is a medical emergency. However, cognitive decline in patients with long history of epilepsy is common symptoms. There can be marked decline in education in children with uncontrolled epilepsy
What does a seizure feel like in your head?
There can be clouding of consciousness for some time. But you may sweat or feel sick. Complex focal seizures happen in the area of the brain that controls emotion and memory. You may lose consciousness but still, look alert, or you may gag, smack your lips, laugh, or cry.
Types of seizures
When someone is suffering a seizure, it can be hard to tell. A person having a seizure may appear disoriented or staring at nothing. Other seizures cause people to tumble, shake, and lose awareness.
Two types of seizures exist.
Generalized seizures: Generalized seizures impact both hemispheres.
Focal seizures:
Focal seizures attack one brain area. These seizures are partial.
Epilepsy can cause multiple seizure types. Learn about seizure kinds and symptoms.
Epilepsy treatment.
Epilepsy treatment may reduce or eliminate seizures.
Your treatment plan depends on your symptoms’ intensity.
Many things can be done to stop or reduce epileptic seizures.
- health
- response to therapy
Epilepsy treatments include:
Medicine.
Medicines are the main choice of treatment in epilepsy. Anti-seizure drugs minimize brain seizures. A doctor may modify the dose or prescribe a new prescription to find the optimum treatment. Epilepsy medicines help 2 out of 3 people. Anti-epileptic drugs diminish seizures. They may prevent seizures in some persons. To be effective, take the medication as directed. Carbamazepine, valproic acid are two widely used anti-epileptic drugs
Rare Treatment Options
The use of these interventions is very rare. This is because these treatment are themselves associated with many risk.
Surgery.
When focal seizures arise from a single location of the brain, surgery may stop future seizures or make them simpler to control with medicine. Epilepsy surgery is usually utilized for temporal lobe seizures. If it’s the right treatment for your condition, the area of the brain that causes seizures can be removed or altered.
Vagus stimulator.
This implant stimulates the nerve in your neck to avoid seizures.
Ketogenic diet.
More than half of children who don’t respond to pharmaceuticals benefit from the ketogenic diet, a high-fat, low-carb diet.
Other therapies.
Other treatments can help when drugs and surgery don’t work. These include vagus nerve stimulation when an electrical device is implanted beneath the skin on the upper chest to give impulses to a major nerve in the neck. Another option is the type of diet, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet with limited calories.
Self-Management of Epilepsy
Self-care is self-management. You can manage seizures and live a full life.
- Medicate.
- Ask your doctor or nurse questions.
- Find seizure triggers
- You should document each seizure that occurs.
- Rest up.
- Relax.
What’s the difference between convulsions, seizures, and epilepsy?
Epilepsy is a disease while convulsions are the symptoms. Uncontrolled muscular movements and altered consciousness characterize convulsions. Convulsion and seizure are similar. Tonic-clonic seizures are also called convulsions.
Epilepsy causes some seizures, but not all.
It can be a lifelong condition.
When to contact a doctor
Checkups are important. The people with well-managed epilepsy should see their family doctor or epilepsy specialist at least once a year. Epilepsy patients who aren’t well-managed may need to see the doctor more often.
Schedule an appointment with your doctor if you encounter new symptoms or side effects after a prescription change.
Conclusion:
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that produces unprovoked, repeated seizures. Seizures are bursts of electrical activity in the brain that briefly disrupt its function. Men acquire epilepsy more often than women, presumably because of alcohol usage and brain trauma. Epilepsy can start at any age, but frequently in children or the elderly. Other treatments include vagus nerve stimulation and a ketogenic diet. Seizures might be symptomless; rest, relax and document each seizure that occurs.
