Understanding Epilepsy: Causes, Symptoms, And Treatment Options

World Epilepsy Day is observed on the second Monday of February every year to spread awareness about epilepsy and showcase the problems faced by people with epilepsy. Epilepsy is a brain disorder where your nerve cells stop signaling normally, resulting in sudden seizures. While there is no cure for it, it can be managed with various types of treatment options.

What you need to know:

What is epilepsy?
Epilepsy symptoms
Epilepsy causes
Warning signs of seizures
Epilepsy treatment

What is epilepsy?

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Epilepsy is a chronic nerve condition characterized by repeated episodes of seizures arising from abnormal electrical activity from damaged brain cells. This results in sudden changes in your consciousness, sudden movement of muscles and body parts and changes in your emotional and behavioural state.

Epilepsy symptoms

Here are some common epilepsy symptoms that you might face while experiencing different types of seizures:

Cognitive problems and confusion
Staring
Stiff muscles
Loss of consciousness
Uncontrollable movements of limbs and legs
Increased fear, anxiety and deja vu
Symptoms of psychosis

Epilepsy causes

While most causes of epilepsy remain unknown, some known causes are:

Genetics: Epilepsy types such as juvenile myoclonic epilepsy and childhood absence epilepsy are hereditary and more likely to be passed on.
Mesial temporal sclerosis: This type of scar develops in the inner part of your temporal lobe, which leads to focal seizures.
Brain infection: Brain infections can cause brain abscesses, meningitis, encephalitis, and neurocysticercosis.
Development disorders: Birth defects affecting the brain are a common cause of epilepsy, especially in people whose seizures are not treated or managed properly. Some of the brain development abnormalities that cause epilepsy are focal cortical dysplasia, tuberous sclerosis and polymicrogyria.
Brain vessel abnormalities: Brain health conditions that can lead to epilepsy include brain tumors, strokes, dementia and abnormal blood vessels like arteriovenous malformations.

Warning signs of seizures

Here are some common warning signs of the two types of seizure or epilepsy symptoms that you can recognize:

Focal onset seizures

Focal onset seizures don’t cause loss of awareness, alter your emotions, and change the way things look, feel, smell, or taste. You can also experience deja vu. This can also cause involuntary movements of the legs and hands. Symptoms include tingling, dizziness and flashing lights.

Focal seizures with impaired awareness can lead to loss of consciousness, leading you to feel like you are in a dream. While you are experiencing this type of seizure, you can perform repetitive tasks or walk in circles.

Generalized onset seizures

Generalized onset seizures affect and involve all the parts of your brain. Some of them are:

Atonic seizures: Also known as drop seizures, these cause a loss of muscle control and affect your leg.
Clonic seizures: This type of seizure causes repeated jerking muscle movements and affects the neck, face and arms.
Tonic seizures: Tonic seizures lead to stiff muscles and even to loss of consciousness. It can affect the muscles in your back, hands and legs and lead you to fall suddenly on the ground.

Epilepsy treatment

In most cases, epilepsy treatment involves anti-seizure medicines, a keto diet and even surgery.

What type of anti-seizure medicine you need depends on certain factors, including:

Seizure type
Your past reaction to anti-seizure medications
Pre-existing medical conditions
Side effects of the drug
Your age
Overall health

Your doctor can also recommend epilepsy surgery if anti-seizure medicines don’t work effectively.

While epilepsy can be treated and managed with the right treatment plan. If you still experience discomfort or intense symptoms, visit a hospital immediately.

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