Understanding Your Seizure: Why It Happened And What To Do Next

A seizure can be a frightening and confusing experience, leaving you with lots of questions. If you’ve had a seizure, Baptist Health is here to help.

What Is A Seizure?

A seizure happens when the brain's normal way of working gets mixed up. It’s often called an “electrical storm in the brain.” There are many kinds of seizures, generally categorized as focal (or partial) and generalized seizures.

How To Identify A Seizure

Seizure symptoms can appear in different ways, depending on the type of seizure.

A focal seizure starts in one side of your brain and is less severe than a generalized seizure. Symptoms can include:

• Loss of consciousness or awareness
• Deja' vu
• Anxiety
• Changes in sight or smell
• Sweating
• Nausea
• Gagging
• Smacking lips
• Crying
• Tiredness

A generalized seizure occurs in both sides of the brain and is typically more severe. Symptoms can include:

• Loss of consciousness
• Tiredness
• Staring off with rapid blinking
• Loss of muscle tone or limp appearance
• Falling or convulsing with a tensing and relaxing of your muscles

Knowing whether you’ve had a focal or generalized seizure helps with diagnosis and treatment. You might not know which kind of seizure you’ve had. It’s best to talk with your doctor to help figure it out.

What Causes A Seizure?

Seizures can happen for many reasons. Everyone has about an 8-10% chance of having a seizure in their lifetime. There are many reasons you might have had a seizure. Most are provoked by one or more of the following:

• Certain medications
• Fever
• Head injury
• Stroke
• Excessive amounts of alcohol or withdrawals from drugs and alcohol
• Low blood sugar
• Electrolyte disruption or imbalance such as dehydration
• Brain infection

Could My Seizure Be Epilepsy?

If someone has experienced a seizure it does not necessarily mean they have epilepsy. Everyone has an 8-10% chance of having a seizure, and only a 3% chance of having epilepsy. It’s defined as “a chronic brain disorder that causes recurring, unprovoked seizures.” If someone has experienced two or more unprovoked seizures (a seizure that occurs without a clear cause, such as an injury), they should be evaluated for epilepsy.

Epilepsy causes vary widely.

Common causes include:

• Infection
• Family history of epilepsy
• Autoimmune disorders
• Physical differences in the brain
• Metabolism issues
• Head trauma

If a person has epilepsy, a seizure could be triggered by things like stress or not enough sleep.

How Is It Diagnosed?

An epilepsy diagnosis requires clinical evaluation. It’s a combination of health history, lab tests, and brain imaging such as an MRI or an EEG. Specialists determine the exact type of epilepsy to prescribe the right treatment and medication.

At Baptist Health, our double-board certified epileptologists and neurologists can help provide an accurate diagnosis. Our new neurodiagnostic center and dedicated Epilepsy Monitoring Unit can help assess your exact type of epilepsy and come up with a treatment plan that is right for you.

When To See Your Doctor About A Seizure

Learn more about epilepsy diagnosis and treatment at Baptist Health or start by talking to your primary care doctor.