Now some people may not approve of this but if ever I feel a little a delicate I have a cigarette this provides an a relatively instant "sharpening" of thoughts. I have given up smoking and find this relatively unpleasant but find it works. In the US they treat with nicotine, in Canada they treat with a weak form of pot (but never smoke pot in UK it is strong and interfers with your prescibed drugs). 2 and a half years ago I had my last "proper seizure" I came round to find an ambulance crew standing over me in my office, trying to "sharpen me up" with oxygen. I was speaking a bit of rubbish and finding tricky to get the right words out but I got them to get me outside I had a cigarette and snapped right out of it. It is bad for you but unlike tegretol retard this gets very instantly into your system through your lungs. I have disscussed this with my GP and when I stopped smoking regularly I chucked another 100mg a day of lamotrigine into my diet. I had found that since taking epilsepsy treatment that I started smoking at very regular intervals and when I decided to give it up a patch and a little more lamotrigine actually made it incredibly easy. Again NOBODY SMOKE if you do then you will actually probably decrease "the smack round the face" impact but this has proved an incredibly useful trick for me.

In 2003 my 3 yr old began having seizures. His first one happened in the middle of the night. We thought he was dying. We had taken him to the Gallisano Childrens hospital in Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester NY, USA
. It was approximately a 2 and 1/2 hour drive one way, but it was the best hospital we knew of. The hospitals in our area werent that clean or efficient. Anyways, he was there for a few days, they gave him clonazepam for the seizures and sent us home. As I am sure you all know it takes a while before finding the right medication. I had quit my job, taken him out of school and took care of him all day and night. He was more prone to night seizures. So he slept on my chest every night, so that I knew I would wake up when they started. It was such a horrifying experience. The rest of my life had taken a back seat to Sebastian, my husband, my youngest son, my family. Sebastian was my only concern. Needless to say, he still had seizures. Some of them were pretty bad. The doctor kept telling us to up his meds, but his seizures seemed to get worse.
Finally I called the neurologist up again and I told her that I was bringing him back up because the new meds seemed to make him have even more seizures than before. So she agreed to do a week-long EEG with cameras on him so that they could figure out exactly what was going on with him. In the mean-time I did plenty of research on my own. I was tired of feeling helpless in this situation. They had hooked him up to the machines, taken him off all the medication, and we waited....and waited...and waited... The doctors asked me if I wanted to stay at the Ronald McDonald House....instead, I layed next to Sebastian in his hospital bed. I was not leaving his side. He had slept with me at home, so I figured I definitely wasnt going to leave him alone at this point. He had begun seizing around the 2nd or third day. They kept recording the seizures as they were progressively getting worse. On the 6th day, I told the nurses I would be right back, I went to go call my husband and get a bite to eat. When i came back in to Sebastians room, there were doctors and nurses standing all around his bed. He was seizing so bad, he had turned blue. The heart monitor and breathing monitor almost came to a stop. He was dying...his heart was barely beating and he had quit breathing. I completely lost it! I thought he was gone. The doctor had injected an emergency drug into his IV to stop the seizure. I held my breath and waited for what seemed like an eternity, and Sebastian came back! The neurologist came in the room and said that they were done with the testing, they werent going to risk any more. She told me she would keep him over night for evaluation. We had discussed medicines so I told her I had heard of Depakote. She figured it was worth a try as well. He was started on the meds immediately.
After we finally went home. He had a seizure every now and then. Maybe one or two a month. The doctor kept upping the dosage. Finally he got to the point where he was 2 months seizure free. Now, honestly, I will tell you, the depakote did have negative affects on him. He was not able to control his emotions half the time. He was unable to retain new information while he was on the medication. He was somewhat "zombified". I knew he was having issues from the meds, but i thought it was a small price to pay, considering the alternative. Faith played a huge part in our lives. We prayed nonstop for our boy to be healed. He even prayed for himself because he saw us doing it so much! The next thing we knew, 6 months, 9 months, 18 months had passed by. The doc had said "2years seizure free and we can take him off the meds".
Finally, 26 months! Doctors orders-we took him off the medication. Waited a week and then he had a 24 hour EEG. The results came back normal! He was six. He had been behind in school, like I said because of the medication. You would not have believed the difference! His personality came back, he was learning again. As of the date of this post, he is 8 going on 9. Still no seizures. But I want to let you know that Sebastian is doing great in school. Is caught up to where he needs to be and is living a normal life. He has no more emotional issues. He knows he used to have seizures....he remembers his time in the hospital...he doesnt talk about being on the medication but does remember it. And he knows that he is a stronger little man because of the struggles he's had to overcome. He doesnt know about almost dying in the hospital. And even still, it chokes me up, just thinking about it. So I want to let people with seizures and parents of children with seizures to know, dont give up hope, keep your faith, and if you havent found the right medicine yet, keep trying. Weigh the side effects of the medicines carefully. (We were lucky that Sebastian was able to gain everything back) If you're feeling helpless, do as much research as you can. You may be able to suggest treatment options that the neurologist might not have thought about.
Best wishes and many blessings!

I've recently found a useful resource which provides information about specific epilepsy medicines. There were even pictures of the correct tablets and a list of all possible side effects. I hope people find it as useful as i have:-

http://medguides.medicines.org.uk/document.aspx?name=Epilepsy

Hello people :-)
Im 25 and only have had epilepsy 4 the past 2 n a half years, they started in my sleep ( i have tonic clonic seizures ) ive always twitched in my sleep n would wake up all or a sudden n sometimes i would b very scared, which if i feel before i have 1 its so scary but now i have them at any time of the day and i believe my mobile phone doesnt help, ive recently lost my job over this due to time off i do find some people very ignorant about this illness but luckly all are not, and reading ur stories are helping me understand more n that i can go through with my studies even though they are hard ( think thats my bad memory lol ) n also no that u can live with it n not let it take over ur life, take care all u nice peeps and wat a amazing site i dunno where i wud b witout it x