Diagnosing epilepsy

There are a number of medical conditions that can cause symptoms similar to epilepsy. Your family doctor will usually refer you to see a neurologist who has a special interest in epilepsy. This is to make sure you are correctly diagnosed and are given the best possible treatment for your epilepsy. A correct diagnosis will also have an effect on your right to drive.

• More information about driving and epilepsy

Doctors make a diagnosis of epilepsy based mainly on the symptoms and experiences that you have had. It can be helpful if somebody who has seen you have a seizure can give a description of what they saw happen to the doctor. It can also be helpful if you keep a diary of your seizures.

Your doctor may ask you to have some tests at the hospital. These include EEG tests and CT or MRI scans. None of these tests can prove that you do or don’t have epilepsy, but they may give useful information to the doctor. This includes the possible cause of your epilepsy and the type of seizures you have.

Having epilepsy means that you have a tendency to have seizures. If you have only ever had one seizure, some doctors prefer to wait and see if you have any more, before making a diagnosis. A single seizure is not usually classed as epilepsy. Occasionally, doctors may recommend that you start treatment after just one seizure, especially if it was a long seizure. This would be to prevent you from having further seizures and reduce the risk of you having injuries.

• More information about diagnosing epilepsy

Seizure diaries

It can be helpful to keep a ‘seizure diary’. This will enable you to give as much information as possible about your seizures to your doctor.

Here are some details about your seizures that you could put in a seizure dairy.

• Dates
• Times
• A description of what happened
• What you were doing beforehand
• How you felt beforehand
• How you felt afterwards
• If you were awake or asleep.