During Ramadan, healthy adult Muslims are required to fast between dawn and sunset. This means that they are not allowed to take food, drink, or drugs by mouth. This can be a challenge, particularly if you have a long-term condition such as epilepsy, and need anti-epilepsy drugs more than once a day.
Recent research found that there was an increase in the number of seizures their patients with epilepsy experienced during the holy month. This increase was probably due to changes in the way their anti-epilepsy drugs were taken, sleep patterns being disturbed, going for a long time without food, and emotional stress and tiredness. These are all things that are known to trigger seizures in some people with epilepsy.
If you have epilepsy and are fasting, you may want to seek advice from your epilepsy specialist, specialist nurse or GP.
For any general information about your epilepsy and treatment, contact Epilepsy Helpline by email helpline@epilepsy.org.uk, or in the UK freephone 0808 800 5050 or text your question to 07707 805 390.
We can provide references and information on the source material we use to write our epilepsy advice and information pages. Please contact our Epilepsy Helpline by email at helpline@epilepsy.org.uk.
This information has been produced under the terms of The Information Standard.
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Updated November 2011To be reviewed November 2013
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