Hi Nick,
Seizures are much more frightening for the person watching their loved
one have it.  Your mom feels no pain during it.
You did absolutely the right thing to hold her and just be with her
until she came out of it.
Hope this helps a little,
Liz

Hi.   Your original post is still at bottom.  Here is an older post I did
that lists some sites that you will find useful, and that will reinforce
what "Liz and Allan" posted overnight.   You might want to bookmark the
First Aid for Seizures part, plus have a look at the links Julie set up
regarding Safety around the house.   Some people may have 'just' Absence
seizures (petit mal) and lose awareness for seconds to minutes without
remembering doing that -- those are ones too that could be dangerous if they
were cooking or taking a bath at the time.  The full ones like you describe
have the same potential too.
   Like they said on their reply, 'we'  don't feel anything once the
seizures have moved to the Full Mode.  We "may" feel an Aura,  sense of
dizzyness, strange taste or odour that's not there, or feeling of Deja Vu or
Jamais Vu (disorientation where our own place might feel strange),  *as the
seizure starts.    The Type of Aura depends on the seizure type or Area of
the Brain where there seizure focus is.
   Once the seizure Generalizes and spreads to Full Mode, we no longer are
aware of what we are doing, what is happening or if we're putting ourselves
at risk for injury.
  If she's been having these since childhood, she may not be aware that
she's even having an 'aura'  since that is the 'normal'  phase for her, and
has been, for so long as she can remember.
   This is the older post I did to someone else on this group.   G./ --->

Found it, in case you don't see one of Julie's posts.
 Idaho main site (bookmark it once you click to it) is
http://www.epilepsyidaho.org
 There are 2 first aid charts, one you can look up for First aid in Water
if he swims.
 But Page 2 of above has Basic First Aid Chart.   There's a Printer
friendly button top left to Print this page only, that will format it for
printing.
  You can then scroll down to page 10 for Household Safety ideas that has
tips and tricks I mentioned earlier.   General safety page that might take
you direct there anyway is http://www.epilepsyidaho.org/safety/ .
    The General U.S. Ep. Foundation site has a Medications Glossary and
other topics (not as good as Julie's, I thought, but older and more detail
wrt. Medicines etc.)  is at http://efa.org  .     G./

 Another thing I thought of-> Within the First Aid for seizures links I
quoted to you earlier, there is also a Description of what 'we do'  or may
do, during each of the main seizure types.  If you look down that part of
the description, you'd likely recognize if she was having e.g. a Right
Temporal Lobe seizure (now grouped under Complex Partial seizures),  a
seizure starting in the Left T. Lobe, or another part of the brain.   The
seizure type often has a 'fingerprint'  specific to the area where the
seizure is happening and *where it started from (if you do searches, that
area is often called 'the Seizure Focus').
   Depending on the seizure type, and the focus, you might find useful
articles specific to the ones she's having and which types of treatments
work best for a particular type.    If she's already prescribed any pills,
and you post them 'here' (or search them under the efa.org website),  you'll
find others around who are likely using them who can give you pointers on
what to watch for, or possible side effects. (*Possible doesn't mean they're
**likely,  they're just Possible in some people's cases)...

Specific Anti Ep. Medications (AEDs)  are more and more targeted to
particular seizure types, so even knowing the particular pills she uses, may
give useful Search tools to you because the Dr. has determined that she has
xxx type of seizures and that's why she's using yyy type of pill to treat
it.

 One advantage of having a look at the efa.org  medications website, is
that one of my pills, (Tegretol) is interfered with if I were to drink
Grapefruit Juice. That **wasn't listed on the original printout I got from
my Pharmacy, since it wasn't generally known at the time.
Many of the prescriptions now list possible side effects, but not all
locations include it yet.  (I think I found that on earlier efa.org website
when I searched on pills I had been using for 2-3 years just to see what was
there. I hadn't been told that before, although it's now on our local
pharmacy's Healthwatch printout.)   They just forgot to give me an updated
printout... /G.

Hi Nick,
   I've been having seizures since I was 8 years old - 31 years ago. I've
had between 1,500 and 6,000 seizures each year, and from what you say about
your mother they're similar to hers. During the seizures there's absolutely
no pain. The only thing remotely painful about it is possibly aching muscles
from tensing up during the seizure. Epilepsy can however be life
threatening, but only in the sense that if you had a seizure and fell off a
cliff or onto a busy road, or were silly enough to be driving a car, you
could be hurt or killed.

   Your mother is quite right in that not having enough sleep can bring on
a seizure. Also a major trigger for a lot of people is stress. Personally, I
find stress to be the worst thing for causing me to have lots of seizures,
so if it's at all possible to prevent her getting stressed or over tired you
could help reduce the number of seizures somewhat. Caffeine also triggers
seizures. At one point I stopped drinking coffee, tea, coke, etc and the
number of seizures I had halved.

   You're right that doctors don't know a lot of what goes on in the brain.
My mother-in-law was dying from some rare brain disorder and the top
neurologist in Australia drew a dot with a pen on some paper and placed a
pencil case next to it and said if the pencil case is the brain, then the
dot is how much we know about it.

   Take heart Nick. Millions of people with epilepsy live long and healthy
lives, as do the dozens of people reading this newsgroup.

All the best from New Zealand.
Darryl.

Howdy Nick!

If her seizures are like mine, she doesn't feel a thing. As a matter of
fact, I'm usually not even aware of the fact that it's happened unless
somebody tells me about it afterwords.

I just lose the chunk of time when the I had the seizure and about 45
minutes after the seizure (like amnesia.)

thanks a lot everybody. the information here is all very helpful. i
feel much better for her now. thanks. love u all

She doesn't feel anything during the seizure. If you keep her from falling
anywhere dangerous she should be OK in an hour or so.  I've had them for 37
years now and I can say there's a heck of a lot worse things to have then
seizures.

Tinker