Epilepsy is a defect in the transmission of electrical signals inside the brain, and although it is commonly believed that epilepsy always causes a fit of involuntary movement and loss of consciousness, in fact, epilepsy appears in very different ways.
Cases in which the known signs of an epileptic seizure appear are often implicit, eliciting strange sensations, hypersensitivity, and abnormal behavior. Some people with epilepsy stare into space for a while when they have a seizure, while others suffer from severe convulsions and convulsions.
Many people, such as: children who have a fever may suffer from one seizure, but if the case recurs and a person has two seizures, the risk of having another third seizure increases very seriously, and it is worth mentioning that at least two seizures must be diagnosed in order to diagnose Epilepsy.
Epilepsy generally appears in childhood or in adults over the age of 65, however epilepsy may appear at any age.
Correct and appropriate epilepsy treatment can prevent the patient from epileptic seizures or at least reduce the frequency and severity of their occurrence, and many children and boys with epilepsy recover and recover from it in adulthood.
Symptoms of epilepsy:
Epilepsy is caused by the irregular activity of brain cells, so epileptic seizures may cause damage to any work that the body does that is coordinated by the brain, and an epileptic seizure may cause temporary confusion, complete loss of consciousness, staring into space, and involuntary trembling movements of the hands and feet.
The signs and symptoms of a seizure vary according to its type. In most cases, if a person has recurrent seizures, they tend to develop the same signs and symptoms in each seizure, so that the signs associated with a seizure become the same from one seizure to another, but there are other patients with different types of seizures. Seizures, signs and symptoms vary from time to time.
Doctors tend, in general, to classify seizures into partial or general, according to the picture in which the irregular activity began in the brain. If the seizure appears as a result of irregular activity in only one part of the brain, this is a partial epileptic seizure. In all parts of the brain, it is called a general seizure. In some cases, a seizure may start in some part of the brain and then move to all parts of the brain.
Types of epileptic seizures:
1. Partial seizure
Types of partial seizures include:
Partial seizures Simple
This seizure does not cause loss of consciousness, but may cause a change in feeling, or a change in the appearance, smell, taste, or sounds of familiar things.
Complex partial seizures
This type of epileptic seizure causes a change in the cognitive state, then loss of consciousness for a certain period of time, and also causes staring into space and movements without a specific goal, such as: rubbing hands, making sounds with the tongue, movements of the hands, and making movements and sounds of swallowing.
2. General Nuba
The general shift includes the following:
Absentee seizure or petit mal seizure: This seizure is characterized by staring into space, implicit bodily movements, and temporary deterioration in consciousness.
Myoclonic seizure: This seizure appears in sharp movements of the hands and feet.
A tonic-clonic seizure (Grand Mal): It is the most severe type of seizure, and is characterized by loss of consciousness, body stiffness, shaking and tremors, and sometimes accompanied by biting the tongue or loss of control over the exits of secretions.
Epilepsy complications:
* If a person stumbles at the moment he has an epileptic fit, he may receive a blow to the head, and a person who has an epileptic fit while swimming or taking a shower in the bathtub may drown.
*A seizure that results in loss of consciousness or loss of control may be very dangerous if it occurs while driving or operating machinery, and medicines intended to suppress seizures may cause drowsiness, which may limit the ability to drive.
*Epileptic seizures in a pregnant woman pose a danger to the fetus and the mother alike, knowing that a number of drugs approved to treat epileptic seizures increase the risk of congenital abnormalities of the fetus, and therefore if a woman has epilepsy and wants to become pregnant, she should consult with the doctor about the matter Healer.
* Most women with epilepsy are able to become pregnant and give birth to healthy children, but they may be required to change the therapeutic dose of drugs and they must be monitored and monitored permanently throughout the pregnancy.
* The risk of sudden and unknown death as a result of an epileptic seizure increases if:
The epileptic seizures started at a very early age.
Epileptic seizures that involve more than one part of the brain.
Continuing seizures despite taking medication.
Epilepsy treatment
1. Pharmacotherapy
More than half of the children who received drugs for epilepsy may eventually be able to stop taking the drugs in order to lead a normal life without seizures, and a large number of adults with epilepsy will be able to stop taking the drugs if more than two years have passed since the last seizure. .
Treating epilepsy with the right medication and the right dose can be a complex task. The treating doctor is likely to recommend a specific medication at a relatively low dose, and then gradually increase the dose until seizures can be controlled. .
All anti-seizure drugs have side effects that may include: mild tiredness, dizziness and weight gain, and more severe symptoms may also appear, such as: depression, rash, loss of coordination, problems with speech and speech, and extreme tiredness.
In order to control epileptic seizures, medication should be taken according to
It is necessary to inform the doctor of all the medications taken, and it is absolutely forbidden to stop taking the medications prescribed by the attending physician without referring to him.
If treatment for epilepsy with medications to suppress seizures doesn't work, or you don't have satisfactory results, your doctor may recommend other treatments, such as surgery, radiotherapy, or a high-fat diet.
2. Surgical treatment of epilepsy
Surgical epilepsy treatment is often recommended when tests indicate that the seizure source is concentrated in a small and specific area of the temporal lobes in the brain, and surgical treatment of epilepsy is recommended in rare cases if the seizure source is distributed in several different regions of the brain or if The source of the seizures is in an area of the brain that contains vital functional parts.
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