Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures that occur without any obvious trigger and are caused by abnormal, sudden bursts of electrical activity in the brain.
According to WHO, there are roughly 50 million people worldwide living with epilepsy. That is a significant number.
The majority of patients who are diagnosed early and receive proper treatment will lead a normal life without any problems. In this post we will discuss symptoms of epilepsy, causes, and changes in the brain state during the seizure.
What is Epilepsy?
A seizure can be a one-time occurrence without epilepsy necessarily. For epilepsy diagnosis, the doctor must have witnessed at least two unprovoked seizures at least 24 hours apart. It is a very significant decision because there are several non-epileptic reasons behind one seizure.
Epileptic seizures are due to the sudden and recurrent abnormal firing of the electrical brain signals.
The WHO has indicated that epilepsy is responsible for roughly 1% of the worldwide disease burden, and around 80% of people who suffer from it are in regions where it is very difficult to get treatment.
The correct identification of the condition is the first step. That begins with understanding the signs of the disorder.
Dr. Abhishek Kumar Neurologist | Epilepsy & Stroke Specialist BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital, Patna
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Common Symptoms of Epilepsy
Here’s the thing about epilepsy symptoms – they don’t follow one script. The experience depends almost entirely on which part of your brain is affected.
One person might fall and shake. Another might have brief staring spells. Both should be taken seriously. After all, recognising these early signs of epilepsy can make a meaningful difference in how quickly you seek help.
If you or someone you know is experiencing any of the signs described below, getting evaluated by a head specialist doctor in Patna is worth sooner rather than later. Delayed diagnosis means delayed treatment, and that gap can matter.
Physical Symptoms
- Jerking movements – Sudden, rapid muscle contractions in the arms, legs, or across the whole body are what most people picture when they think of seizures. They can be brief or go on longer than expected.
- Staring spells – These are less dramatic but just as real. The person fixes their gaze, seems to blank out for a few seconds, and doesn’t respond. They often have zero memory of it happening. These are called absence episodes.
- Loss of consciousness – This is another possibility where the person falls, goes limp, or becomes completely unresponsive before gradually regaining awareness.
Emotional and Cognitive Symptoms
After a seizure ends, many people go through what neurologists call the postictal phase. It looks like exhaustion or confusion, difficulty speaking, disorientation, a fog that can last from a few minutes to a couple of hours. It’s often mistaken for something unrelated.
Unexplained fear or sudden intense dread can itself be a seizure symptom, especially in focal seizures involving the temporal lobe.
Recurring memory gaps around seizure events are also common. Over time, if seizures happen often, they can affect concentration and memory more broadly.
Warning Signs Before a Seizure
Some people get a heads-up before a seizure begins. These early warning signs of epilepsy are helpful signals that a seizure may be coming.
- Aura: Aura is sometimes described as a weird sensation gradually rising from the stomach, a sudden burst of an emotion, or a visual disturbance.
- Dizziness: Another sign is dizziness, especially if there is no apparent cause. Occasionally, these signs can even offer a person time to get to a safe place before a situation worsens.
- Unusual smells or tastes: Right before a seizure some might be aware of unusual smells which are often metallic or burning or odd tastes. This is associated with temporal lobe activity and in fact it is one of the most well-recognized types of seizure auras.
If you see such patterns, be sure to note them down. A symptom diary allows the neurologist to obtain exact details from which they can recognize your type of seizure and also suggest the best treatment time.
👉 Recurring seizures without a clear cause? Book a consultation with Dr. Abhishek Kumar at Big Apollo Spectra Hospital, Patna.
What Causes Epilepsy?
There is no one factor that causes epilepsy. It could be due to brain-related factors, genes, developmental factors, or no cause could even be found at all.
What is significant, however, is finding the root cause as it is the basis for a treatment decision. A patient with post-stroke epilepsy will have a different management plan than a person with a genetic form.
1. Brain-Related Causes
Stroke – It is a leading cause of epilepsy in adults over the age of 35. After a stroke damages the brain, a scar forms, which starts to produce abnormal electrical impulses. A study published in The Lancet Neurology revealed that about 6% of stroke patients develop epilepsy.
Brain tumours – Whether benign or malignant, it can press on surrounding tissue and disrupt normal brain activity. Seizures are often the first symptom that points to a tumour diagnosis.
Head injuries – This is another cause if you are wondering “can head injury cause seizures?”. Severe blunt trauma or penetrating wounds significantly raise the risk of what’s called post-traumatic epilepsy.
2. Genetic Causes
Some epilepsy types are directly tied to specific gene mutations. Dravet syndrome and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy are two examples. Having a close family member with epilepsy does raise your risk slightly, but it’s not a guarantee.
3. Childhood Causes
In children, birth complications, brain infections like meningitis or encephalitis, high fevers, and certain developmental brain abnormalities can all lead to epilepsy. Some childhood epilepsy syndromes improve significantly with age. A few resolve on their own.
When There’s No Identifiable Cause
In about half of all epilepsy cases worldwide, no cause is ever found. This is called idiopathic or cryptogenic epilepsy. No cause found doesn’t mean no treatment available. Many people in this group respond well to anti-seizure medications and become seizure-free.
Whatever the cause is – known or unknown, it shapes the conversation you need to have with your neurologist for the right treatment plan.
What Happens During an Epileptic Seizure?
During a seizure, millions of neurons fire at once which is far beyond what the brain’s normal activity looks like. The circuits that control movement, awareness, and sensation get flooded.
What you actually experience depends on where in the brain it starts. A disruption contained to one small region might leave you conscious but feeling strange. If it spreads across both hemispheres of the brain, there can be loss of consciousness and the physical effects become widespread.
The possible changes during a seizure include muscle stiffening, rhythmic jerking, or sudden limpness; confusion or complete unconsciousness; tingling, visual disturbances, or strange sounds and smells; and automatic repetitive behaviours like lip-smacking or fumbling with hands.
Most seizures are over within 30 seconds to 2 minutes. If one goes past 5 minutes, that’s status epilepticus which is a medical emergency. Call for help immediately.
Being able to describe what happened, where you were, what your body did, and how long it lasted gives your neurologist the information that tests alone can’t always provide.
Types of Epileptic Seizures
Seizures are classified by where they start in the brain and what happens during the episode. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) maintains these classifications and they’re not just academic.
Getting the type right determines which treatment has any chance of working. Here are some types explained:
1. Focal seizures begin in one area of the brain. If you stay conscious, it’s called a focal aware seizure. If awareness fades, it’s focal impaired awareness seizure.
Symptoms vary based on which area is involved. Focal seizures in the motor cortex cause twitching in one limb, not the whole body.
2. Generalised seizures involve both brain hemispheres from the start. They usually cause loss of consciousness and affect the whole body. This category covers several subtypes.
- Absence seizures are easy to miss. They last 5 to 30 seconds and the person stares, goes unresponsive, and snaps back with no memory of it. Most common in children, often confused with daydreaming.
- Tonic-clonic seizures are what most people picture. The body stiffens first (tonic phase), then shakes rhythmically (clonic phase). Consciousness is lost. The person may bite their tongue or lose bladder control. Recovery can take minutes or a few hours.
3. Unknown Onset Seizures: This is a phrase given to seizures where the first sign or the start of the attack is not known.
Sometimes it happens, when the person is asleep, the seizure may come without waking the sleeper and it is only discovered when the person is found with some injuries that are possible to have been from a seizure, or the seizure is completely unwitnessed and there is not enough information to classify it as focal or generalized. In case more information or testing becomes available, doctors can often reclassify these seizures.
Different seizure types will require different medications. It is the correct diagnosis from the beginning that allows starting with the right one rather than having to work through trial and error.
Seizures that are in some way not understood, unexplained, or have been recurring need immediate attention.
In case you or your family member fit this description, getting in touch with a specialist fairly rapidly will give the clearest picture of what is going on and what steps will follow.
How is Epilepsy Diagnosed?
To diagnose, no single test can confirm epilepsy but a combination of clinical history & physical examination along with various tests is usually employed for diagnosis.
For best neurological diagnostics in Patna, BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital is the place to visit where all tests under one roof are performed by an expert team of neurologists and neurosurgeons. Here’s what the diagnostic process can look like:
1. Neurological Evaluation
A neurologist begins to evaluate a patient for epilepsy by taking a detailed account of the history of the seizures the patient has experienced.
This would also include an account of the general medical history of the patient, previous illnesses and any previous treatment the patient has received for any medical condition. The doctor would also perform a physical examination to assess the functions of the nervous system and the brain.
2. EEG (Electroencephalogram) Test in Patna
An EEG Test is a very important test for epilepsy. The test measures the electrical activity of the brain. Abnormal electrical activity in the brain can indicate epilepsy.
The report of the test can also provide information regarding the type of seizures a person is experiencing.
3. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Scan
An MRI scan is taken to understand the internal structure of the brain. MRI helps in identifying abnormalities like tumors, scar tissues or malformations in the brain’s cortex that may cause seizures.
4. CT Scan of Brain
This is a quick test taken to determine if there has been any damage to the brain in case of first seizure.
5. Blood Tests
There are some rare circumstances where a person can have an episode that may resemble a seizure, and your neurologist may conduct some blood tests to rule out any metabolic causes for your symptoms.
These could be due to low blood sugar, an imbalance of sodium in the blood, infections, or kidney and liver dysfunction.
✅ Book an Appointment with Dr. Abhishek Kumar for a comprehensive neurological evaluation at BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital, Patna.
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Once epilepsy has been diagnosed, the treatment of the condition becomes very important. The majority of cases of epilepsy can be managed very effectively and the vast majority of people with epilepsy can lead normal lives.
Can Epilepsy Be Managed Successfully?
Yes, epilepsy can be managed successfully in the majority of cases and about 70% of people suffering with the condition are able to become seizure free by taking the correct amount and type of anti-seizure medication, as stated by the World Health Organization.
Also most of the people with epilepsy lead normal lives, are able to work, drive and even have children, and have no restrictions in their life.
However, managing epilepsy is a constant job that you have to be consistent with. The good news, however, is that the majority of the patients can be managed and can lead normal lives.
The most important factor in the treatment of epilepsy is a good night’s sleep. Seizures in epilepsy patients can occur because of sleep deprivation.
A person suffering from epilepsy should also try to avoid all the factors that could lead to seizures in him or her. These are called ‘triggers’ and every person with epilepsy has his/her own set of ‘triggers’ that could cause seizures.
The most common ‘triggers’ include intake of alcohol, stress, being exposed to flashing lights, and also not taking the medicines on time. A patient suffering from epilepsy must always try to avoid all these factors to control any unexpected seizures.
Your neurologist will be monitoring you to ensure the dose of your medicine is adequate and will manage any side effects you may encounter.
Dr. Abhishek Kumar, Consultant Neurologist and Member of the Indian Epilepsy Association at BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital, Patna takes a patient centric approach for the management of epilepsy. A personalized long term plan is given to each patient to manage epilepsy.
Epilepsy can be dangerous if left unmanaged which is why consistent care matters so much.
Epilepsy Management and Treatment
1. Anti-seizure medications (ASMs) are the mainstay of epilepsy treatment. A neurologist picks the most appropriate medicine for controlling epilepsy based on type of seizures, age of a patient, and if there’s presence of other medical conditions.
2. Surgery is not a common option; it mainly means the removal of seizure focus. Occasionally, a Corpus Callosotomy (cutting of the nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain) or even a vagus nerve stimulation can be done after a thorough evaluation.
3. Simple lifestyle modification in sleeping, stress and diet may be effective in decreasing the frequency of seizures in epilepsy.
To get knowledge about advanced epilepsy treatment methods and expert neurological care, see our comprehensive guide on epilepsy treatment in Patna.
When Should You See a Neurologist?
If you are wondering whether a symptom warrants a specialist visit, the answer is: when in doubt, get evaluated. Early assessment by a neurologist prevents delays that can put you at risk.
Seek prompt care if you experience any of the following:
- First seizure: People have the false notion that a first seizure needs no treatment. But in reality first time seizure is the most important to get evaluated by a specialist as it could be a sign of an underlying condition which needs to be investigated and treated.
- Recurrent seizures: Even if you have had 2 or more seizures and are wondering what is happening with your brain, you need a correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Consult a neurologist for epilepsy treatment in Patna in these cases as well.
- Loss of consciousness: Sudden blackout followed by a loss of consciousness with or without confusion should be assessed by a specialist.
- Unexplained confusion: Prolonged and recurring disorientation can be caused due to seizure activity and can affect a person’s awareness.
- Seizures that occur when a person is asleep: Nocturnal seizures are difficult to be aware of as they happen when the patient is unconscious. Evidence of a seizure in the morning could be a bitten tongue or mouth with unusual soreness. Family members are often best placed to identify any unusual movements that a person may have had while they were asleep.
👉 Book an Appointment with Dr. Abhishek Kumar at BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital for an early evaluation to help manage your condition effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are clear, direct answers to the questions people most commonly ask about epilepsy.
1. What is the cause of epilepsy?
The cause of epilepsy could be brain injury, stroke, genetic mutations, infections, or abnormalities in brain development, and for almost half of the people with epilepsy, a cause is never found.
2. Can epilepsy go away permanently?
Certain types, particularly some epilepsies of children, may disappear as the person grows up while many adults need medication for a long time. “Remission” is a term used when the seizures have stopped, but it is not the case for everyone.
3. Can epilepsy patients live a normal life?
Certainly by using the treatment properly and avoiding the triggers, approximately 70% of people with epilepsy become seizure-free and live full, unrestricted lives.
4. What does epilepsy do to a person?
It leads to the person experiencing seizures that are recurring, which will affect the person’s movement, sensation, awareness, or behaviour temporarily.
If epilepsy is not managed properly, it can lower the person’s confidence, disturb the person’s sleep, and limit the person’s daily independence.
5. Is epilepsy a mental illness?
No, epilepsy is a neurological disorder related to the brain’s electrical activity and is neither a psychiatric disorder nor a mental health condition.
6. What are the warning signs before a seizure?
Symptoms may be feeling a certain smell, a sensation of the stomach rising, visual disturbances, sudden dizziness, fear that is unexplained, and feeling that you have seen a situation before (The feeling of déjà vu) right before seizures start.
7. Is epilepsy a serious disease?
It can be; seizures that are uncontrolled can lead to injuries, SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy), and difficulties in cognitive functions, which is why getting treatment at the right time is very important.
8. Can stress trigger epilepsy?
Yes, stress is one of the reasons most often mentioned by people as a trigger for seizures; while it does not lead to the development of epilepsy, it can cause seizure episodes in people who already have the condition.
9. Is epilepsy dangerous if untreated?
Yes, the lack of treatment for epilepsy can lead to an increased chance of injuries due to falls, status epilepticus, cognitive decline, and SUDEP, which is why regular treatment is very important.
10. Can children develop epilepsy?
Yes epilepsy can start at any time in life but most of the time children under 10 and older adults over 65 are diagnosed with it.
11. Can a person have epilepsy without frequent seizures?
Yes, some people can have seizures extremely rarely (once or twice a year) but still have a diagnosis of epilepsy and require continuing management.
12. How to avoid epilepsy?
Although we cannot prevent all cases of epilepsy, lowering risks of head injury, properly treating children’s fevers, safeguarding against brain infections and controlling blood pressure and other stroke risk factors will help reduce the chances of epilepsy.
Consult a Neurologist for Seizure Management
Epilepsy can be treated; it is not a death sentence. Whether you are dealing with a brand-new diagnosis or have been living with seizures for a long time, expert care can improve your quality of life significantly.
At BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital, one of the most dependable healthcare facilities in the region and an advance neuro hospital Patna facility, Dr. Abhishek Kumar (Consultant Neurologist and Member of Indian Epilepsy Association) has over 15 years of medical experience and 7 years of concentrated neurology expertise.
And he treats each patient with a full range of services from accurate diagnosis to tailored long-term care. His approaches are the combination of scientific evidence, compassion, and effectiveness.
So, do not delay until one more seizure happens.
✅ Get in touch with Dr. Abhishek Kumar at BIG Apollo Spectra Hospital, Patna right away and start your journey to a seizure-free life.
