Epilepsy is a central nervous system (neurological) disorder in which brain activity becomes abnormal, causing seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations, and sometimes loss of awareness. It is the fourth most common neurological disorder and affects people of all ages, races, and genders. Some people with epilepsy stare blankly for a few seconds during a seizure, while others repeatedly twitch their arms or legs. At least two unprovoked seizures are generally required for an epilepsy diagnosis. There are many symptoms and signs to show that someone is diagnosed with epilepsy. Someone with epilepsy will show signs of: temporary confusion, a staring spell, uncontrollable jerking movements of the arms and legs, loss of consciousness …show more content…
You can go about treating epilepsy through seizure medications, a change in your diet, nerve stimulation, and surgery. Most of the time, your doctor will prescribe you some sort of medicine, the type of medicine depends on the type of epilepsy, allergies, other medications you take, etc. These seizure medications alter your brain function and change how your cells communicate with each other to stop or reduce any seizures you have. Your doctor can also put you on a specific diet called the ketogenic diet. This diet is high in fats. The fats help your brain’s health and cell/nerve communication. However, this diet comes with lots of side effects such as weight gain, constipation, kidney stones, and more. A different option is nerve stimulation. You can get a responsive neurostimulation, which is when a device sends signals to your brain during seizure-like brain activity to interrupt it. Or you can get a vagus nerve stimulation, which is when they send electrical signals through your chest to your brain to control seizures. The last way you can get treated is through surgery. You can either remove a small part of your brain responsible for the seizures (resective surgery), or cut the nerve paths that are involved with seizures (disconnective