Having Epilepsy

Having epilepsy is no fun wherever you are. I have been (un)fortunate enough to experience treatment approaches in both England and France, so can give an idea of the differences. I'll get to those in a minute, but first some background.

I first realised that something was not quite right in 1995. I mentioned my strange episodes with difficulty of articulation and general "wooziness" to my GP but it was never considered as a problem. In fact, the GP suggested that it was because I was tired and/or stressed - "relax and get some sleep". Excellent advice, but the sort of advice I would expect from my mother, not a doctor.

I was lucky in the sense that I worked with doctors. In fact I was part of a university department that was linked to the radiology lab. In 1995 I went to NY for a conference. Probably because of jetlag, I had lots of small seizures (nothing like what happened a year later in Vancouver when I ended up in A&E, but that's another story). Luckily I was able to tell a colleague when it was happening as it happened. His informal diagnosis: you have migraines, go and see your doctor. This was intriguing because I have suffered from migraines all my life.
Anyway, I preferred to ask another radiologist who referred me to a consultant neurologist for an MRI scan. The scan showed no brain tumour, but armed with a letter from the consultant, my GP referred me to another specialist who gave me the full range of tests.

I got the results immediately "I have some bad news - not for your longevity - but I can confirm that you do have temporal lobe epilepsy". Great, I liked the bit, quickly added, "not for your longevity". "Here's a prescription, take it to the pharmacy department, get a first dose and then go back to see your GP". Lamictal was prescribed - a small dosage according to the consultant. The pharmacists obviously didn't have much experience with this drug because they went back to the consultant because they thought he had prescribed an unusually large dose. He hadn't, but you can only be happy that the pharmacists worry about this type of thing.

I'll get to the symptons in a moment...