Home Care:

Most seizures stop by themselves. However, the patient can be hurt or injured during a seizure. For information on how to help someone who is having a seizure, see: Seizure first aid

Call your health care provider if:

Call 911 or your local emergency number if:

• A seizure occurs in a person who has never had one before
• It is an unusually long seizure in someone who has a seizure disorder

Report all seizures to the person's health care provider. The doctor may need to adjust or change the person's medications.

What to expect at your health care provider's office:

A person who has had a new or severe seizure is usually seen in a hospital emergency room. The health care provider will try to diagnose the type of seizure based on the symptoms.

Tests will be done to rule out other medical conditions that cause seizures or similar symptoms. This may include fainting, transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke, panic attacks, migraine headaches, sleep disturbances, and others.

Tests may include:

• Blood tests
• CT scan of the head or MRI of the head
• EEG (usually not in the emergency room)
• Lumbar puncture (spinal tap)

Further testing is needed if you have:

• A new seizure without an obvious cause
• Epilepsy (to make sure the person is taking the right amount of medicine)

A single seizure due to an obvious trigger (such as use of a certain drug) is treated by eliminating or avoiding that trigger.

Prevention:

There is no specific way to prevent all seizures. However, the following tips may help control some of them:

• Always take your medications as your doctor instructed. Family members should observe and record any seizure information to make sure the person gets proper treatment.
• Get plenty of quality sleep, reduce stress, exercise, and eat a healthy diet. Poor health habits can make you more likely to have more seizures.

You might help lower your risk of seizures if you:

• Use helmets to prevent head injury. This will lessen the likelihood of a brain injury that leads to seizures.
• Avoid illegal street drugs.

You should not drive if you have uncontrolled seizures. Every U.S. state has a different law detailing which people with a history of seizures are allowed to drive. If you have uncontrolled seizures, you should avoid activities where loss of awareness would cause great danger, such as climbing to high places, biking, and swimming alone.