Seizures

What are seizures?

Seizures are sudden, involuntary electrical activity bursts in the brain that can cause changes in your behavior, feelings, movement, and consciousness. You might experience various symptoms, such as:

• Temporary confusion
• Staring spells
• Uncontrollable, jerking arm and leg movements
• Loss of consciousness
• Lack of awareness
• Fear and anxiety
• Nausea
• Seeing flashing lights
• Tingling
• Trouble speaking
• Suddenly feeling angry, happy, or sad
• Déjà vu (feeling like you’ve already lived an experience)

Seizures usually last between 30 and 120 seconds — seizures lasting longer than five minutes constitute a medical emergency.

Could I have different kinds of seizures?

Seizures may be focal, generalized, or of unknown onset, depending on where they originate in your brain. Focal seizures come from one area of the brain. Generalized seizures involve the entire brain. Different types include:

• Absence seizures (staring, eye blinking, lip smacking)
• Tonic seizures (muscle stiffening in the back, arms, and legs)
• Atonic seizures (loss of muscle control)
• Clonic seizures (repeated jerking muscle movements)
• Myoclonic seizures (sudden, brief arm and leg jerks or twitches)

Tonic-clonic seizures are the most dramatic kind. You might suddenly lose consciousness, and your body stiffens and shakes, sometimes violently. Tonic-clonic seizures can cause loss of bladder control or make you bite your tongue.

What causes seizures?

Seizures can occur after you suffer a stroke or head injury. Infections like meningitis and other illnesses that cause fevers can trigger a seizure. Drug or alcohol misuse may also cause seizures. Often, the cause of seizures is unclear.

If you experience two or more seizures with no less than 24 hours between them and the cause is unknown, you’ll likely have an epilepsy diagnosis.

What treatment will I need for seizures?

If you have a single seizure, treating the underlying cause prevents another — for example, reducing your temperature if a fever causes a seizure. If you receive an epilepsy diagnosis, Las Vegas Neurology Center offers anti-seizure medications and specialized treatments like:

Vagus nerve stimulation

Stimulating the vagus nerve in your neck with a device implanted under your skin can prevent seizures.

Responsive neurostimulation

Neurostimulation involves implanting a device on your brain’s surface or within the tissue. It detects seizure activity and stops it with electrical stimulation.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS)

DBS is similar to responsive neurostimulation, but you have electrodes in your brain and a pacemaker-like device implanted under your skin to control the electrical stimulation.

Call Las Vegas Neurology Center if you suffer a seizure or schedule a consultation online today.