My Experience
This summer, my 12-year-old brother had his first seizure. The week after he had his first one, he had another seizure. After that came another and then another. It was ongoing, each seizure worse than the last. Soon, he was diagnosed with epilepsy and put on medication that is not supposed to stop the seizures, but instead reduces the number of seizures he has while also giving him rashes, mood swings, and violent tendencies. Due to this horrible experience, my whole family has had to deal with a lot of stress, but we have all gained a lot of knowledge about seizures. I wanted to create a positive outcome from this unfortunate incident and share my knowledge about seizures, which might help someone who knows someone with epilepsy or witnesses someone having a seizure in the future.
What You Can Do
A seizure just appears to be someone shaking rapidly. It is normal to panic when seeing a seizure for the first time — my whole family was frozen the first time my brother had one. It is often expected that someone else will take charge and handle a scary situation, but with seizures, there might not be enough time for everyone to look at each other while waiting for someone to step up. If the person is someone who you know for certain commonly has seizures, it is not recommended to call an ambulance unless they are showing signs of breathing struggles. Instead, do not move the person around too much unless they are in harm’s way. Gently move them to a safe corner and make sure that they are laying on their side, not on their stomach or back. Keep talking to them to keep their attention, and do not give them any food or water. Within 10 minutes, the seizure should die down. If it doesn’t, call 911 and talk to them about the situation in detail. No matter how knowledgeable you think you are about a medical situation, medics will always know more.
The most important thing that I want to emphasize is to have patience. A person with epilepsy will experience more side effects from medication and the seizures themselves than anyone realizes. The medication can cause mood swings and rashes, contributing to irritability. Seizures can also cause someone to be tardy and forgetful. All it takes to make a person with epilepsy’s life easier is to be understanding and knowledgeable about their struggles.