Differential diagnosis of epilepsy

  Migraine is a headache caused by periodic episodes of neurovascular dysfunction, characterized by recurrent episodes of hemiplegic or bilateral headache. There are many similarities with some types of epilepsy, especially autonomic epilepsy, both of which are episodic in nature, and both can have nausea, vomiting, headache, and EEG abnormalities. Nevertheless, both are distinct in pathophysiology and pathogenesis.  1. Visual hallucinations: Both migraine and occipital lobe epilepsy have visual hallucinations. Flashes of light, dark spots, hemianopia, and blurred vision appearing in the visual field defect area are common in patients with typical migraine; complex visual hallucinations, such as objects becoming larger and smaller, colorful lines, and basically formed figures or animals are usually mostly epileptic.  2.Headache: headache in epileptic patients mostly occurs after the seizure, and its degree is mild; migraine with severe throbbing pain as the main symptom, often on one side.  3. EEG abnormalities: epilepsy is mostly paroxysmal epileptiform discharge waves, such as spike wave, sharp wave, spike-slow wave synthesis, etc. In contrast, although the intermittent EEG of migraine may have focal slow waves and middle temporal spike waves, they appear on the same side of the headache and disappear after sleep. Migraine has no change or shows a slowed background wave rhythm in the EEG during the attack, whereas epilepsy has a significant epileptiform discharge.