Epilepsy affects each person differently. Below is a guide to some common seizure triggers. You may not feel or notice anything in particular. Or you may have triggers which are not mentioned here. Keeping a seizure diary is the most effective way of keeping track of what triggers your seizures.
One of the good thing about auras, is that if you’re aware of them, they’re effective (if unpleasant) warning signals of an oncoming seizure.
I didn’t learn to identify mine (mouth filling up with saliva and disgusting metallic taste) until I was well into my 20’s.
How many of us have heard: “Your EEG is normal. You’re fine..” (“It’s all in your head?”)
I know of people who have had 5 EEGs, only to be properly diagnosed when they finally had Video EEG Monitoring.
So if someone is trying to pass you off or is ignoring your symptoms, perhaps you should become a little more familiar with your diagnostic options…
The question of whether a person has epilepsy or Alzheimer’s can be a tough one.
Take those “senior moments” — memory lapses, zoning out and other temporary confusion. These seemingly harmless incidents may actually be a sign of epilepsy. Roughly 1-2 percent of seniors develop epilepsy — and that rate is rising.
But experts at the U.S. National Council on Aging warn that often epilepsy goes undetected in seniors.
At the very best, finding the right anti-epilepsy drug is a crap shoot. There’s always the hope that this one will do it.
Or maybe adjunct therapy will work. Or, sigh, the side-effects derail you and you’re on to the next.
Is asking for seizure control too much to ask?
Yup. A comic cartoon fires up the same brain center as a shot of cocaine, researchers report.
Recently a woman wrote to me telling about the awful diagnostic disaster that she had been through.
In her words: “It took 3 years, 3 primary doctors, and 7 neurologists to diagnose me.
I told everyone that ‘it feels like my brain is shaking in my head.”
If they had listened to me the first time and had done a simple EEG, it would’ve saved us and the insurance company a lot of money!”