5 Tips for Managing Epilepsy in Your Daily Life

Epilepsy affects millions of people with a range of symptoms, including seizures that can make life harder every day. For ways to manage the issues that come with this illness, let’s look at how you can reduce its impact in your life.

The brain is a fascinating and complex organ that, through a series of rapid, electrical impulses, determines our actions, moods, and controls functions throughout the body. When these impulses misfire, it happens for several reasons and can lead to many issues, including seizures, which are common in a lifelong condition known as epilepsy.

Not every seizure happens because of this illness, and it can take on many forms, but without proper management and care, dealing with epilepsy can be difficult.

The team of doctors at Riverhills Neuroscience dedicates itself to helping the people of Norwood, Anderson, Westside, Ohio, and Crestview Hills, Kentucky, with a variety of neurological problems, including the many issues associated with epilepsy.

While we have several ways to help manage your issues with this condition, there are also some things you can do at home to reduce the impact it has on your life.

Epilepsy basics

This chronic brain disease results from the faulty signalling of nerve cells, leading to uncontrolled electrical activity in the form of seizures. The jerky, twitching reaction from some seizures is what most people think of with this illness, but there are a variety of ways this event presents itself in epileptics:

General onset

Events like clonic, tonic-clonic, and myoclonic seizures have stiffening, twitching, and jerky motions associated with them. Still, other types in this class, like absence, atonic, and tonic seizures, have an entirely different set of symptoms, including staring off into space, loss of muscle control, or falling due to muscle stiffness.

Focal onset

This type occurs in a network of cells on one side of the brain, and with the focal onset version, causes changes in your senses or emotions, or causes you to see flashing lights. Twitching and jerkiness in the arms and legs are also possible. The focal onset term means you’re aware of what’s happening during the seizure.

The other form, focal onset impaired awareness seizure, causes a loss of consciousness or awareness when it occurs, and also causes staring into space as well as repetitive movements.

How it affects your life

As many as 50 million people struggle with epilepsy globally. Its history dates as far back as 4000 BCE. Not everyone coping with it has many events in front of others. Still, when it does happen, you have no control over your actions, and it leads to a mix of reactions and stigma in strangers, and can be awkward to deal with around friends and family.

People in many places around the world still struggle with discrimination, fear, and misunderstanding of this disease.

Methods of management

To maintain control over this illness, try these essential tips from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

1. Learn more about your illness

Since there are so many types of seizures you can have, learning more about your type of epilepsy makes a big difference in finding ways to manage it.

2. Control the triggers

If you know what triggers seizures, make a concerted effort to avoid them. If you’re not sure what triggers them, pay attention when they happen to learn what may be contributing to them.

3. Make healthy lifestyle changes

Many changes can reduce seizure events, like getting more and consistent sleep (seven to eight hours), maintaining a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, avoiding tobacco products, reducing your alcohol intake, and staying on top of any other health problems you may have.

4. Practice self-care

Staying mentally healthy is vital to work on reducing stress by seeking help with emotional issues, keeping your family-and-friend network in your life as much as possible, and, if memory problems are present, finding help dealing with them.

5. Stick to your medication regimen

When treating your epilepsy, once we know which type you’re dealing with, make sure to follow the medication instructions carefully to reduce the number of seizures you deal with.

Epilepsy can be a disruptive problem in your life if it’s not under control, so make an appointment with our team at Riverhills Neuroscience today to find the treatment options to improve your life.