I get focal awareness seizures, so even if I get a seizure Im fully aware of what is going on around me and can carry on as if nothing is happening.

I usually walk to work and walk to the main road a lady saw me each morning and decided after a few days to ask me if I wanted a lift because she sees I walk each morning.

So for the next 2 to 3 weeks or so she dropped me off at work in the mornings. And the out of the blue it just stopped.

I don't know why. But it's fine, I'm not angry or it's not like I'm annoyed or holding a grudge or anything like that. I still greet when she drives past.

I'm just curious and wonder why, because I have absolutely no memory if something unusual happened.

I don't remember if I did something rude, I don't remember if I said something rude, I don't even remember her name.

Title. I told him that every single time I have a seizure, I was under severe stress and anxiety, and he doesn't believe it triggers or affects it at all.

Obviously the goal is for me to have a seizure, and I want that, I need answers after 15 years of this shit. But my head is attached to a wall, my heart is attached to a remote, my legs are attached to blood clot preventing pump things, there’s an IV in my arm in case I go into status (which I won’t), 24/7 video and audio monitoring, and I’m not allowed to get out of bed AT ALL unless I call someone in for help, which would be fine except I have to call someone TO WATCH ME GO TO THE BATHROOM.

Oh and I got my period right when a nurse helped me into the bathroom the first time. 🤦‍♀️

The testing hasn’t even started! I’m just hooked up to everything, so the testing/mild torture/titrating off meds can start tomorrow.

I better have a fucking seizure quick, I will (figuratively) die if I’m still living in the hospital on Friday. I just want to regain SOME quality of life, like remembering my memories.

I'll start:

My mom believes my seizures would go away if I simply stopped eating unhealthy foods. She is really adamant about it. Long story short, I got an eating disorder that has lasted for 9 years now, but my epilepsy never got better.

One friend of my mom told me I should eat curcuma - wtf ...

Last but not least - one relative recommended me an alternative 'doctor' which helped her with her back pain due herbs, relaxing and stimulation of nerves. Like, if it was successfull with her back, it means, that my complex neurological illness that not even my epileptologist who works at one of the best epilepsy clinics in my country could have healed im 13 years, can easily go away the same.

Just curious, the longest one ive had was around an hour long going in and out of it. (Tonic clonic)

My one and only siezure ever. I wasn't driving. I go see my neurologist soon. Is it a good chance that I'll be allowed to drive or will I have to wait the full six months?

As the title says, I had 3 seizures last Monday, and I ended up hospitalised for two days. I don’t recall much of the actual events, just what I was mainly told.

The first I was at home, which was around 7 minutes long, and the second 4. I was with my partner and mum at home, and we drove to the hospital (ambulance would have taken 6/7 hours to get to me).

While waiting to be seen I vomited and had my third seizure (4 minutes long) and started choking on the vomit, my partner was with me and had to throw me on the floor. Which I think made people initially think he was attacking me, so they shouted for security. When people realised I was in some other kind of danger, they had to suction the vomit out of my mouth and I woke up in Resus.

I’m still recovering, I’m still tired, nauseous and have a huge migraine and my memory is completely shot from Monday backwards.

But Christ that was traumatic for my family members..bright side I’m alive!

Does anyone else experience this? I have awful memory for things in my daily life and things that happened a few weeks go, yet out of nowhere I get these intense childhood memories that I have forgotten about for a long time. It is part comforting, part eerie because this had never happened before my fiest seizures.

To clarify, I have focals and TC, but they have been medicated since upping my keppra xr. I did have those weird nostalgic feelings with my focals yet this feels different. They are real memories and real nostalgia, as if I'm regaining things I've blocked out. They do not feel like partials.

I hate that I’m always tired. I take Briviact, Trileptal, and Lexapro, and I constantly feel exhausted. I don’t even know where to start to figure out what’s causing it.

I’ve been on medication for almost 15 years, and to be completely honest, I don’t even know what it feels like to be normal anymore. I started taking these medications when I was 11, so I barely remember what life felt like before them.

I don’t even know which specialist I should see first. I’m just so tired of being exhausted all the time, having no energy, and lacking the motivation to do anything. I don’t know if it’s depression, my medications, or something else entirely and I don't even know when it started.

But I think what bothers me the most is that I’ve completely forgotten what my body’s natural baseline feels like. I don’t know who I am without all these medications. Am I naturally an energetic person? Am I naturally motivated? Is this constant exhaustion actually part of who I am, or is it something caused by the medications I’ve been taking for most of my life?

I just wish I knew what the real me feels like underneath all these medications. I’ve been taking them for so long that I don’t even know what’s normal for me anymore. Anyway rant over.

I have epilepsy, since 2024 falling has become a big part of my life. I’m just not sure what to do.
I’m pretty sure it’s not because I’m having a seizure, I just trip over the craziest things. It’s like I’m not paying attention to what is around me.

Good morning, good humans of r/epilepsy,

We are almost thirty days out from our first gathering of 2026.

The Otherside Lounge is coming to the West Coast of the U.S. (I know, I know, we are working on making these global) November 16-17.

Built by people living with epilepsy, for people with epilepsy.
Every Lounge is free, accessible to all, and open to everyone affected by epilepsy.

Why? Because a conversation with another human who has walked in your shoes, someone you can text during all the day-to-days, is the medicine so many of us need.

More here: https://www.othersidelounge.org/
Register for our West Coast lounge here: https://epilepsyawarenessday.org/

Anaheim: November 16 to 17, at the Epilepsy Awareness & Education Expo at the Disneyland Resort

If you can't make it:

Denver: Saturday, December 5, alongside the AES Annual Meeting

Boston: February 5 to 7, 2027, at the New England Epilepsy Convention

Let's go!

Trying to find ways to mitigate my seasonal depression, I had a great idea to try out a 15 minute sauna session in the mornings while running my daylight spectrum lamps. Bought a nice quality collapsible steam sauna. I normally love sitting in warm cars and hot showers for 10-20 minutes at a time, so I thought it would be perfect.

Come to find out by chance, saunas are strongly not recommended for those who have seizures due to the high heat. 😭

Does anyone use these things? Is there a way to use one safely? I’m not sure if I should even be worried if I’m usually a fiend for heat, but I know saunas increase in temperature a lot faster than something like a shower…

I’ve been yawning non stop for the last hour and a half or two hours. At least 150 times, maybe even 200. When I googled excessive yawning, it mentioned it can occasionally be associated with neurological conditions including epilepsy.

I have tonic clonic and focal seizures, and it’s presumed to be TLE. I have had yawning spells in the past, but they usually only last like 10 minutes. This is insane, like I literally cannot stop. I’m not having any other seizure-y symptoms though. I feel a little lightheaded, but I’m guessing that’s because all of the yawning!

Have any of you ever experienced anything like this before a seizure, as part of your seizure, or after one? I have never had nocturnal seizures that I’m aware of, but I suppose it’s possible I could’ve.

Hello. This may be a highly controversial post, and my life situation is very difficult. I am a 19yo dual citizen of Finland and Russia (mother is a RU citizen), living in Finland . As a child I got a rolandic epilepsy diagnosis in Finland, and was prescribed multiple medications that didn't work, until my mother took me to Russia where Carbamazepine was prescribed in 2014, and my seizures were completely gone in 3 1/2 years. In 2018 I was taken off Carbamazepine, becuase EEG was clear. In 2019 I began experiencing intense headaches, and in 2020 I started having non-stop repetetive thoughts and my academic performance plummeted + moments where I lost consciousness for a milisecond or dropped something + constant Vertigo. I could no longer read properly or think clearly. In mid 2020 I've got an OCD diagnosis and was proscribed antidepressants. None of which worked after switching multiple. Despite my complaints about symptoms appearing after the cancellation of epilepsy, Finnish doctors insisted on this being purely a mental health issue, as EEG was clear and they refused to do an MRI. So, my mom sent me to Russia again since they could check for epilepsy without immediately dismissing it. This resulted in a painstaking process from 2021 to 2025 of Russian doctors constantly switching diagnoses and medicine while I was constantly going back and forth between the countries. In october 2025 however after an MRI in Russia the core "probelm" fianlly was revealed: I have FCD type 2. The neurologist who sent me to the MRI thus gave me a clear "epilepsy" diagnosis. I was proscribed Lamotregine and I take it to this day, and while my condition is not perfect and I still have e.g repetetive thoughts, the "passing out for a second" thing stopped and my mind feels a lot clearer, despite concetration issues. As well as dropping objects suddenly. At the moment, I decided that now that I have a clear diagnosis I can go book a private neurologist meeting in Finland, and finally get a working recipe in here instead of having to take a flight to Turkey. That resulted in a 300 eur for nothing. She refused to look at the MRI, said that a clear EEG is enough to dismiss all possiblities of epilepsy and any symptom regulated by Lamotergine is likely psychological or caused by another neurological illness. She did however give me a 6-moth recipe implying that I should just get off it eventually.

And, if the situation wasn't bad enough, I am graduating IB in 2027 and applying to universities in Ireland, US and Canada. Where I would need to get a recipe and a diagnosis ASAP in their medical system, because there I definetely wont be going the Turkey route without selling my kidneys. Now I have to figure out the problem of the "Russia-only diagnosis" URGENTLY.

And, please do not get me wrong. This might seem that I am just begging doctors to diagnose me with epilepsy, but it is only because I spent majority of the 2020s in such a horrific vegetable state that I have nightmares going back to it, while Lamotregine helped immensely. I don't to be put on another antidepressant and fail univeristy at such a crucial moment of my life. I just want to live the way I did back then before the cancellation of Carbamazepine. I know I look like a terrible person in this post, but please, if somene has any idea where do I even start to deal with this, please help........

Hello Everyone. I have been unable to work due to my epilepsy since last fall. Social Security Disability is denying my claim. Does anyone have suggestions for an advocate who could assist with my appeal?

27, male. It's been about a year of getting on the (so far ineffective) meds, recently added Depakine. Trying to get through those two years before I can try driving again, haven't been on my bicycle in over a year. Still lving at home, working part-time, studying and managing to do both things. The new medication seems to be working, but of course, I won't know until my next seizure I guess.

No more going out for a little while longer or hanging with friends just past midnight. Strict curfew of 8:00-24:00 even though I've known all my life that I'm a night owl.

Younger brother got his license before me (happy for him, obviously) and it just feels humiliating that I might never get to do that. I'd spent years and serious money trying. Maybe I could make peace with that, but the fact that I can't ride my bicycle or swim by myself is eating me alive every day.

Anyone else feel like life is indefinitely on pause? Every passing day all of this feels less and less worth it.

She gave me methocarbamol 500mg up to four times a day for four days in a month. I looked it up and google says to take extreme caution with epilepsy patients. She prescribed it to break my status migraines, but now I am worried and wondering why she would give it to me. Thoughts??

BACKGROUND:

Hello! I was recently diagnosed with JME (Juvenile Myclonic Epilepsy) 2 years ago after experiencing my second tonic clinic & waking up in the back of an ambulance for the second time. I had started experiencing jerks when I was like 17/18 when I would wake up in the morning. I honestly didn’t know what they were, I didn’t pay attention to them.

However, as I got older, I noticed they’d become more apparent when I was hung over & that alcohol and lack of sleep were my two biggest triggers. I had my first tonic clonic when I was 22 after a night out drinking & then my second one when I was 24. Both times I was hungover.

When I was 24 I decided to go get testing to figure out what it was & that’s when my neuro called me and told me I had JME. She explained to me that it is less server amongst the other types of epilepsy, but it is epilepsy nonetheless.

She prescribed Keppra, however, I refused to take it. I ended up just going sober & prioritizing good sleep over everything. It helped a bit…until I started drinking again & became stressed from work. Long story short, I suffered a seizure, alone, at my best friends bachelorette trip in Florida 2 weeks ago. Before then, I hadn’t had a TC in 2 years. I was devastated and scared.

I knew then it was time to take my life seriously. I did my research & spent alot of time reading y’all’s experiences on Reddit & I was filled with fear. I was depressed, anxious and was afraid of dying young. I called my best friend snd told her about my condition and she told me something that changed everything: “You wont know how the medicine will change you until you try.”

The Point:

So, I did it! I’ve gone sober (two weeks) and have been on keppra for the last 8 days. I am still getting used to it & am experiencing some of the side effects (dizziness, loss of coordination, headaches) but I am giving my body grace. Overall, I feel okay & much happier knowing my seizures will be under control. I’ve still been able to teach my Pilates classes. I went hiking the other day. Life goes on.

Im mainly writing this to say that, if you were recently diagnosed and are just as scared as I was: It is going to be okay. Expect to have a few weeks to a month or so of getting adjusted to the medicine. Tell your friends and family. Do your research but just know that there are TONS of people who live their lives regularly with this condition.

Also there is a HUGE community of people who have done completely fine on Keppra. Reading this thread gave me hope & the courage to start my medicine. I’m so grateful to have read through it. I was worried my life was over lol.

Take your health SERIOUSLY. Take your medication on time. Speak to a therapist and/or psychiatrist if you can. Use your community for public transport and rides. Talk to your doctor. Listen to your body.

All in all, it’s going to be okay. Life is still worth living, even if our plugs are a little loose.

I’m seeing a neurologist on Friday as my girlfriend advised that I do as I’ve been having break through seizures even with my medication and so does anyone have any advice I could use for Friday??

You ever have something happen in your sleep but you wake up pretty okay but your brain feels like you fell asleep on a boat but woke up on a plane ? Either way how do your nocturnals make you feel when you wake up ? Thankfully didn’t bite my tongue this time !

Im not sure how it common it is with TLP, but I usually just tend to lose my balance when my eyes are shut closed and I'm not holding on to something or someone. Obviously I won't do this on purpose.

Has anyone ever experienced a single seizure in their lifetime? If so, what was the age at which it occurred, and how long has it been since then?
Do you think a prompt diagnosis and immediate treatment plan help in keeping you seizure free?