Some people may have easy to control seizures and never have emergency situations. However, there are some factors that may make a person more likely to have uncontrolled seizures and seizures emergencies. It’s important to know if any of these situations pertain to you and to talk to your doctor about your risks.

Have you ever....

• Been diagnosed with status epilepticus?
• Had one seizure after another?
• Had clusters of seizures over a number of hours or days?
• Had a generalized seizure lasting 5 minutes or longer?
• Had long partial seizures or periods of confusion?
• Started or stopped medicines without medical advice?

Do you have...

• Poorly controlled seizures?
• A known cause of seizures, such as infection, stroke, brain tumor?
  
  
• Problems remembering medicines?
• Difficulty taking medicines on a consistent schedule?
• Problems affording medicine?
• Seizures during sleep?
• Live alone?
• Low blood levels of medicine?
• More seizures during medicine changes?
• Taking many seizure medicines?

The Risks of Not Taking Medicines Regularly

Not taking medicines as prescribed is one of the most common risk factors for seizure emergenices. If you or your loved one has had problems taking medicine now or in the past, make sure to talk to your doctor and nurse about how to make taking seizure medicines easier.

• Read about the importance of medication compliance.
• Print out an instruction sheet on the medicines you are taking.
• Look at resources to help with the cost of medicines.
• Make a schedule of when to take your medicines.

Visit http://my.epilepsy.com and check out what others say about managing seizures and medicines.

• If you've checked one or more problems in this list, it’s time to make sure you have a plan for preventing seizure emergencies and managing your medicines.
• Take the list to your doctor and talk about what this means for you - ask for help assessing your risks.
• Develop your own seizure preparedness plan.

Continue to Impact of Seizure Emergencies

Topic Editor: Steven C. Schachter, MD and Patricia O. Shafer, RN, MN.
Last Reviewed:5/25/07

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