WHAT IS IT LIKE TO HAVE AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE: AFTER THE SEIZURE
Most people feel tired or confused for a while after a seizure, and after a tonic clonic or complex partial seizure they may remember little of what has happened. Even if you have no memory of your seizure, there may be one or two painful reminders. Aches and pains in the muscles are common after a tonic clonic seizure because of the muscle spasms that go on during the seizure. Sometimes people pass urine during a seizure. Your tongue or cheek may be sore if it was bitten during the seizure and there may be blood around your mouth. However, even if you fall and hurt yourself you may notice that the injury does not hurt when you recover consciousness, and may not do so for anything up to an hour. This is because during a major convulsion the body releases its own naturally-produced pain-relieving substances, endorphins. People seldom injure themselves during a partial complex seizure unless they were holding a boiling kettle or hot drink at the time the seizure started, or walk into danger during an epileptic automatism.
Consciousness is recovered slowly after a tonic clonic seizure, leaving you feeling confused, disturbed, sleepy and frequently with a headache. Probably you will want to sleep, and will wake up after about two hours, usually feeling better. Although most people feel back to normal the next day, for some the after-effects last longer, and a few people say they do not feel right for a week or more.
Some people find there is a temporary change in their behaviour — for example the way they speak or how they feel — after a seizure. What this is will depend on where the seizure starts. It might be a mood change: a patient of mine used to feel depressed after a seizure, and it was sometimes four or five days before her mood returned to normal. If your seizures start in the speech area of your brain, then this area will be disturbed for a while after the seizure. People who have this kind of speech disturbance say that for an hour or so after a seizure, though they know what they want to say, what comes out is gobbledegook. The feelings most people report are of tiredness and confusion.
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Epilepsy
