What can we do? Epilepsy

Epilepsy can be managed. It is important it is.

There are three golden rules for anybody who has fits.

You can remember them like this:

MORE FITS? WORSE FITS? RESCUE PLAN

Always talk about fits with your doctor at annual health checks

If a person has MORE FITS or WORSE FITS they probably need to have their epilepsy checked up by a specialist.

Have a calendar to record which days the person has a fit. You can download a calendar from this page, or your doctor's surgery could give you one. Every three months, count up how many fits the person has had.

Some people only have one sort of fit. Some people have different sorts of fit. Give them names. When you mark on their calendar that they had a fit, mark what sort it was and how many minutes it lasted.

Fits where a person drops or falls to the ground, and fits where some part of them jerks or shakes are worse than fits where they just become absent or unresponsive. Fits that last longer are worse than short ones.

Rescue plan Most fits stop by themselves in two to three minutes. If fits go on longer than this something needs to be done.

Epilepsy