Taking antiepileptic medicines when you are not at risk for more seizures exposes you to side effects and potential harm from the medicine. But medicine is usually not prescribed if you do not have any of the above risk factors and are thought to be unlikely to have more seizures. There is some evidence to support the use of antiepileptic medicines after a first seizure to reduce the risk of more seizures.
When deciding to start treatment, you and your doctor can consider how likely you are to have a second seizure. The nature of the seizure and the person's age can also help determine whether an imaging test is needed and how soon it is needed. These things increase the likelihood that the seizure may have been related to a serious problem in the brain.
Scans may also be done if the person has ongoing headache or fever, AIDS, recent trauma (especially to the head), or a history of cancer or anticoagulant therapy. These tests may be done immediately if the person who has had the seizure also has a decreased level of consciousness or new motor or sensory problems that do not improve shortly after the seizure ends. You may have had seizures in the past, such as brief absence seizures or auras, without knowing they were seizures.ĭoing an electroencephalogram (EEG), especially after sleep deprivation, may reveal abnormalities in the brain's electrical activity that may help confirm the diagnosis of epilepsy.ĬT and MRI scans can be helpful in detecting changes in the brain that could be related to epilepsy. This phase 2 study shows how subcutaneous EEG can be used to detect FBTCS but more importantly focal impaired awareness seizures an area you stress yourself.
The first seizure you report may not actually be the first seizure you've had. This makes it hard to decide whether to begin treatment for epilepsy. Those investigations must be done by blood tests (to evaluate electrolyte levels for example) and scans such as SPECT or MRI to look for anatomical or structural findings. 22 This choice was made because not all seizures have ictal ECG. 20 Hence, a late integration, OR strategy, has been applied a seizure should be detected by at least one of the modalities (EEG or ECG) for generating a seizure detection alarm, similarly as in Fürbass et al. It cannot determine an underlying cause for seizures. The HR increase/decrease can follow or precede the EEG onset. After you have had a seizure, it can be difficult to predict whether you will have more seizures. An EEG can detect only abnormal electrical activity in the brain and can help localize it to a certain region(s).