Epilepsy is a common disorder.
What is a generalized seizure?
There are various types of seizures and the Grand-Mal seizure is the most noticeable.
A Grand-Mal or a generalized tonic-clonic seizure consists of three stages:
a) The tonic stage, b) The clonic stage, and c) The postictal stage.
It is generally accepted that during the tonic-clonic stage, only few treatment actions can take place, mainly for the prevention of self-mutilation and ailments, since seizures are usually terminated on their own and within a few minutes. The application of an elastic tube between the patient’s teeth is probably the only required action. Every trial of terminating a seizure is unnecessary and likely harmful since it can cause fractures to the patient.
What is status epilepticus?
Status epilepticus is when the seizure’s tonic and clonic stages last more than 15 minutes, or two or more tonic-clonic seizures occur without the person returning to normal between them. Therefore, special treatment is required for status epilepticus, and general principles of coma treatment are applied. We administer Tavor or Stedon iv (dosage of ≤ 2 mg/min) or Epanutin iv (2amp 250 mg iv in N/S 0.9% in fast infusion of 20 minutes). If the seizures persist, the patient is intubated and sedated with the use of barbiturates (barbiturate coma) in the intensive care unit (ICU).
The most common cause of an epileptic seizure is the antiepileptic treatment discontinuation by the epileptic patients.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that a blood test is required for the differential diagnosis of other causes, such as metabolic disorders that are manifested with status epilepticus and are easily reversible.
