Treatment:

What To Do When Someone Has a Seizure

You cannot stop a seizure, but you can help the patient prevent serious injury.

Remain calm, and do not panic, then take the following actions:

• Wipe away any excess saliva to prevent obstruction of the airway. Do not put anything in the patient's mouth. It is an old wives' tale that people having seizures will swallow their tongues.
• Turn the victim gently on the side. Do not try to hold the patient down to prevent shaking.
• Rest the patient's head on something flat and soft to protect it from banging on the floor and to support the neck.
• Move sharp objects out of the way to prevent injury.

Do not leave the seizure victim alone. Anyone nearby should call 911. Patients should be taken to an emergency room when:

• A first-time seizure occurs
• Any seizure lasts beyond 2 - 3 minutes
• The patient has been injured
• The patient is pregnant
• The patient is diabetic
• Parents, caregivers, or bystanders are at all uncertain

Not all patients with chronic epilepsy need to go to the hospital after a seizure. Hospitalization may not be necessary in many patients whose seizure is not severe or repetitive, and who have no risk factors for complications. All patients or caregivers, however, should contact their doctor after a seizure occurs.

Treatment after a First Seizure

Most children who have a febrile seizure do not have a seizure disorder and generally do not require drug treatment to preventive more seizures. In very rare cases, children experience severe fever-related seizures known as complex febrile convulsions. In such cases, there is a risk for brain injury that may lead to temporal lobe epilepsy, but this is very small. Such seizures last over 15 minutes, occur more than once within 24 hours, and may affect only one side of the body.

Treatment with anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) is usually initiated or strongly considered for the following patients:

• Children and adults who have had two or three seizures. (If there was either a long period of time between seizures or the seizure was provoked by an injury or other specific causes, your doctor may wait before starting AEDs. In children, risk for recurrence after a single unprovoked seizure is rare. The risk even after a second seizure is low, even when the seizure is prolonged.)
• Children and adults after a single seizure if tests (EEG or MRI) reveal any brain injury, or if specific neurologic, develolpmental, or epilepsy syndromes put a person at special risk for recurrence, for instance, in cases of myoclonic epilepsy.

There is some debate about whether to treat every adult patient with an AED after a single initial seizure. Some doctors do not recommend treating adult patients after a single seizure if they have a normal neurologic examination, EEG, and imaging studies.

Determining an Anti-Epileptic Drug (AED) Regimen

Most epileptic seizures can be controlled using a single-drug regimen. First-line AED drugs include phenytoin (Dilantin), carbamazepine (Tegretol, Carbatrol), and divalproex sodium (Depakote). Patients generally begin with low doses and build up until the seizures are controlled or a toxic reaction occurs. If a single drug fails to control seizures, other drugs are added on. The specific drugs and whether more than one should be used are determined by various factors, including the patient's age and the seizure's type, frequency, and cause.

Treatment If Seizures Still Occur

Drugs fail to control epilepsy in about 30% of patients. For patients who have little or no benefit from their initial drug regimen the likelihood of good or complete control from different medications or multidrug regimens is not very high.

Reasons for Failure. An AED may fail to reduce seizures due to such factors as:

• The wrong dose level.
• Improper timing.
• Introducing the medication too rapidly.
• Not managing conditions that triggered the seizure.
• Instability of the drugs. Many of the tablet forms disintegrate easily with moisture, so pills should be stored in a dry place, not in the bathroom, and kept away from heat.
• Patients not taking medication as prescribed. Over 40% of patients experience toxic or bothersome effects from older AEDs, which often cause them to stop medications. Among the most distressing are sleepiness, problems in coordination, and weight gain.
• Some evidence suggests that about a quarter of patients who do not respond to AEDs actually have nonepileptic seizures that in many cases are caused by psychiatric conditions (such as panic attack or personality disorders).

The doctor should first address these issues. If the patient still does not respond, the doctor will usually try a different drug. If this fails, one or even two additional drugs at a time may be used. When seizures do not respond to the first two or three drugs, the odds of a fourth or fifth working diminish greatly, despite a number of new medications on the market. In such cases, the patient should ask about surgical alternatives.

Healthy Behaviors. In young people, a positive attitude, continued support from family and health care providers, emotional well-being, and good treatment results can increase patient compliance. Unhealthful behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol use, can have a negative effect.

Monitoring Effects

During the first few months of therapy, the doctor will probably order blood tests once or twice to monitor drug levels and, if necessary, adjust dosages. Monitoring is used to check for AED complications, and to be sure the patient is complying with the regimen. These blood tests may be, however, a less reliable indicator of problems than the patient's own self-observations of his or her responses to the drug. For instance, blood tests may suggest that the dosage levels are insufficient according to general standards, yet the individual patient may be seizure-free and leading a normal life. It is very important that women have AED levels monitored during pregnancy.

Discontinuing Drug Therapy

Over half of all patients treated effectively can stop taking AEDs within 5 - 10 years. Evidence suggests that medications in children should not be halted for at least 2 years after the last seizure, particularly if they have partial seizures and abnormal EEGs. It is not clear whether children who have been free of generalized seizures need to wait more than 2 years or if they can withdraw earlier.

Children who tend to relapse after withdrawal from treatment usually have the following conditions or situations:

• A family history of epilepsy
• Require multiple medications to control seizures
• Abnormal EEG readings after treatment has started
• Partial seizures

There is also no clear evidence on whether adults who are free of any seizure type can safely withdraw from their medications within 2 years of their last seizure of if they should wait.

In any case, attempts to halt drugs should be done during periods when seizures will cause the least harm. For instance, the best time to test the effects of drug withdrawal in teenagers might be about a year before they are eligible to drive.

Treatment of the Elderly

Anti-epileptic drugs interact with many other drugs, and may cause special problems in older patients who use multiple medications for other health problems. Elderly patients should have liver and kidney function tests performed before starting antiseizure medication. Standard drugs are usually effective, while newer ones (including gabapentin, lamotrigine, oxcarbazepine, and gamma-vinyl-GABA) may sometimes prove to be useful as a sole therapy. These newer drugs also increase patient compliance because they tend to have fewer side effects than the older ones.

Treatment of Women

Hormonal fluctuations affect epilepsy in about a third to a half of female patients. Estrogen appears to increase activity, and progesterone reduces it. The effect of pregnancy on women with epilepsy is complex. The following treatments may help or affect women with epilepsy:

• Hormonal drugs that suppress ovulation. When seizures in women are worsened by hormonal changes, such as during the menstrual cycle, suppressing ovulation may be recommended using drugs called gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists.
• Oral contraceptives. Antiseizure medications affect many oral contraceptives (OCs). Carbamazepine, phenytoin, phenobarbital, primidone, oxcarbazepine, and topiramate reduce the effects of OCs. Valproate does not, and may even increase hormonal levels. Gabapentin, lamotrigine, tiagabine, and vigabatrin may also prove to be safe with OCs, but more research is needed. Progestins may be the best contraceptive drugs for women with epilepsy at this time. Injected progestins may actually help prevent seizures in some cases.

(For more information, see the Prognosis section of this report.)