diagnosing epilepsy

andrei · Silver Member Joined: 04 Jun 2002 Posts: 298

Hi. I think I had an epileptic seizure. Two days ago I just fell and started to shake. I can`t remember it well. But people around me looked pretty scared. How can somebody tell if I suffer from epilepsy? What are the symptoms? How is epilepsy being diagnosed?

daft · Silver Member Joined: 12 Aug 2000 Posts: 268

Hi. Epilepsy is characterized by recurrent unprovoked (epileptic) seizures. If you`ve had a seizure, it doesn`t have to mean you have an epilepsy. Maybe it was non-epileptic seizure. Diagnosis of epilepsy requires the presence of this symptom, an epileptic seizure. The diagnosis is usually made on the base of your medical history. You will have to run through some tests, such as EEG, brain MRI, SPECT, PET and magnotoencephalography. On the base of these tests you will discover an etiology for the epilepsy, the affected brain area, and you will be able to classify the epileptic syndrome. However, long term video EEG monitoring is the base of every diagnosis. NES and epileptic seizures are very similar. This means a full diagnosis of epilepsy will require a definite categorization of seizures.

diagnosing epilepsy

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