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| seizure-medications |
The term "seizure" is often used interchangeably with "convulsion." Convulsions are when a person's body shakes rapidly and uncontrollably. During convulsions, the person's muscles contract and relax repeatedly. There are many different types of seizures. Some have mild symptoms and no body shaking. By definition, a convulsion or seizure is the physical findings or changes in behavior that occur after an episode of abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
Causes of Seizure
- Abnormal levels of sodium or glucose in the blood
- Brain infection, including meningitis
- Brain injury that occurs to the baby during labor or childbirth
- Brain problems that occur before birth (congenital brain defects)
- Brain tumor
- Head injury
- Fever (febrile convulsion)
- Choking
- Electric shock
- Drug abuse
- Epilepsy
- Heart disease
- Heat illness
- High fever
- Illicit drugs, such as angel dust (PCP), cocaine, amphetamines
- Kidney or liver failure
- Hypoglycemia
- Phenylketonuria (PKU), which can cause seizures in infants
- Poisoning
- Stroke
- Pregnancy
- Uremia on kidney failure
- Severe hypertension
- Venomous bites and stings (snake bite)
- Withdrawal from alcohol after drinking a lot on most days
- Withdrawal from certain drugs, including some painkillers and sleeping pills
- Withdrawal from benzodiazepines (such as Valium)
Seizure Medications
Medications for epilepsy are mainstays in controlling epileptic seizures. But surgical procedures are another dimension in treatment. Learn about your options.
Most people with epilepsy can become seizure-free by using a single anti-epileptic drug. Others can decrease the frequency and intensity of their seizures. More than half the children with medication-controlled epilepsy can eventually stop medications and live a seizure-free life. Many adults also can discontinue medication after two or more years without seizures.
Finding the right medication and dosage can be complex. Your doctor likely will first prescribe a single drug at a relatively low dosage and may increase the dosage gradually until your seizures are well controlled.
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.
