It’s important to address how you feel. Being stressed, anxious or depressed are all negative feelings.
These may prevent you from carrying on with your daily life as normal. They can also have a direct impact on your epilepsy and how well your seizures are controlled.
When you are feeling low, you may sometimes forget to take your medication. Some days you may not feel like taking your medication at all.
Sometimes, people try and cope with these feelings by drinking alcohol or taking drugs. All of this can make your seizures worse. It can also lead to you feeling more depressed.
It is well known that stress and/or anxiety may trigger seizures. This is another reason why you should not ignore how you are truly feeling. Changing the way you feel can make a big difference to you seizure activity.
Reasons for feeling low
If you have been feeling low for a while, the best thing to do is speak to your GP, epilepsy nurse or epilepsy specialist. They may be able to help you to understand what is making you feel this way. Then you can get the support you need.
There are many reasons why you may feel out of sorts. Here are some of the more common one:
- You may be upset because you feel everything has changed about you since your diagnosis.
It's perfectly normal to feel upset or angry for a while following a diagnosis of epilepsy. The more you know about your epilepsy the easier it can be to put things into perspective. Talk to someone you trust about how you feel or phone your local Community Resource Officer for further information and support on living with epilepsy. You can find their details by visiting the 'Our Local Services' section of our website - You may be upset because your friend and family treat you differently.
Remember, they will need some time to adjust too. You may find that they have become more overprotective of you. This can affect the way you feel about yourself. They may be acting like this for your protection, but speak to them if it is concerning you. Once they know and learn more about epilepsy and how it affects you, they will become more relaxed about it. Again, our team of local Community Resource Officers can help assist family members with their understanding of epilepsy. - You may struggle with how other people view you.
Sadly, you may come across some stigma which has been historically attached to epilepsy. The good thing is that this is changing for the better in communities around the country. Accept that you cannot change what other people think and remember that you may be the first person that they have met with the condition. In many cases, people are unaware of the true impact of the condition. Inform those whose opinions matter most to you on the condition and explain how the condition impacts you, what you can do and cannot do. This will usually change how people will view you. - You may struggle to accept the way your life has changed.
This may be the case if your seizures are not well controlled. Living with frequent and unpredictable seizures can be difficult. Having these seizures can make you feel like you have lost control of your own body. Some people start avoiding public places or won’t use public transport because they are afraid of having a seizure in public. If you have frequent seizures, you will have to make some changes to your life to keep you safe, but you do not have to cut yourself off from friends and family. Any loss of independence can be hard to accept. However, talking to someone can give you many ideas on how to strike a balance between keeping as safe as possible and allowing yourself to get some or all of your independence back. - Feeling low may be a side effect of your medications.
Side effects are usually mild and once your body gets used to the medication, these tend to disappear. Common side effects are drowsiness, nausea, weight gain or loss. Mood swings and more permanent changes to your mood can be part of it. If you feel more irritable or your mood has changed in an extreme way since you’ve started your treatment, talk to your doctor or nurse to inform them of these changes. You can find out more about side effects and how to report them by visiting the 'Side Effects' page on our website. Keep a diary about how you feel. You can score between 0 and 10 (0 for worst and 10 for best) on how you feel in the morning, afternoon and evening. Write down anything that’s changed since starting your treatment and take this with you to your next appointment. This will help your consultant or nurse decide whether your mood swings are side effects of your drugs, if this is the case, you may be given a reduced dosage or a different type of drug. Never reduce your dosage yourself: this could be dangerous and make your seizures worse. Sometimes, your doctor may introduce other medication such as anti-depressants to help you cope with the way you feel as a short-term measure. - Your low mood could be linked to the cause of your seizures.
Your seizures may be caused by scarring to one part of the brain. If this scarring is in an area of your brain which also deals with your emotions it can be the cause for the way you feel. One such area is the temporal lobe. Low mood, anxiety and depression are therefore more common for people with seizures occurring in this part of the brain. Your consultant will check to see if other medications may be suitable to help you. - Your low mood could be part of your seizures.
Many people find that they feel very strong emotions before and after a seizure. This can be anything from feeling very low to feeling excitement or even euphoria. Some of these emotions can occur up to 72 hours before a seizure and 3 days after a seizure. Your doctor will want to try and reduce the number of seizures you have as much as possible by adjusting your medications. Once your seizures are better controlled, you may find that these strong emotions disappear. - There could be a link to you family history.
Sometimes others in your family may have experienced depression. However, just because someone in your family has a history of depression, this does not mean that you will be affected. Remember that depression is a very common condition which affects more than half of all people at some point in their life. Family history is just another factor worth bearing in mind. Ensure that your medical team are aware of this so they can treat you more effectively if needed.