Treatment and management of epilepsy

Medicine

The main way of treating epilepsy is with epilepsy medicines. You may hear these referred to as anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs). There is a variety of epilepsy medicines available to treat epilepsy in children.

It may take some time to find the right dose of the right medicine for your child. But once found, they have a very good chance of becoming seizure-free. In fact, around seven in 10 children with epilepsy can become seizure-free.

The aim of treating with medicines is to control your child’s seizures, so that they can get on with their life. Once their seizures are controlled, they will usually still need to take epilepsy medicine for a while. Sometimes, they may need to take it for many years.

• More information about treatment with epilepsy medicines

Review

Your child should have a regular review with their epilepsy doctor. Their medicine may need to be increased as they grow, or if their seizures are not controlled. If your child developed epilepsy as a baby, their treatment may change as they get older. This is because their seizures can change over time.

Surgery

Some kinds of childhood epilepsy can be treated by surgery. Your child will need to be carefully assessed by a paediatric (children’s) neurologist. If they thought surgery was an option, they would refer your child to a specialist centre. Surgery may be possible for children who have tried a number of different epilepsy medicines, but not had their seizures controlled. Surgery is done to stop a child’s seizures, or reduce how many they have.

Diet

The ketogenic diet is a high fat diet that can help to treat seizures in children with difficult to control epilepsy. It needs to be supervised by a specially trained children’s dietician. Studies show that around six out of every 10 children using the diet have fewer seizures than before.

• More information about the ketogenic diet

Triggers

If your child is old enough, they may recognise things that make their seizures more likely. These are known as triggers. Tiredness, lack of sleep and stress are some of the more common triggers in children. A very small number of children with epilepsy have their seizures triggered by flashing or flickering lights. This is called photosensitive epilepsy.

• More information about photosensitive epilepsy

Some children find that, by avoiding their triggers, they can avoid seizures. But not all children have things that trigger their seizures.