One way to get epilepsy is if your mother has problems during pregnancy, such as radiation, certain medication, infections, and fetal injury. Another way to get epilepsy is by a severe blow to the brain. This is how most people get it. Brain tumors, strokes, mercury poisoning, infectious diseases such as meningitis and encephalitis, and genetic diseases such as phenylketonuria, tuberous sclerosis and neurofibromatosis are other ways to get epilepsy. The symptoms of epilepsy range in severity from staring spells to generalized convulsions called grand malortonin-clonic seizures.
Seizures are sudden storms of electrical activity in the brain.
A person with epilepsy can have more than one type of seizure. If only a portion of the brain controlling movement of a limb is involved, that limb may tremble or jerk uncontrollably. If the affected brain area spreads, more of the body may begin to move erratically. Drugs, surgery, a special diet, or a combination of these treatments is used to prevent seizures. Drug therapy alone can control seizures in about three quarters of all people with epilepsy.