To fly or not to fly?

SHORT ANSWER: you can still fly and travel and be a normal person with JME. you just have to take some precautions so that you don't wake up on a street in madrid wondering who you are and why you're there and what a seizure is.... wow! i actually have JME and was diagnosed two years ago. the last seizure i had was after a flight from new york to new orleans. i'd been drinking too much, and then i had, i think, a partial complex. i don't know: i was semi-conscious and shaking my head and rolling my eyes and SERIOUSLY frinding my teeth. i have long canine teeth that almost look like fangs. well, i ground so hard that i chipped one of them off. i grind my teeth in my sleep anyway, so i'd gone to sleep with my grinding plate in my mouth; it was a soft one, so when i woke up, i'd bitten through it, and i had that and the bone from my broken tooth in my mouth.i hate to think what would've happened had i not been on lamictal, which protects for grandmal seizures. a year before that, i had a grandmal seizure about a week after i got off a transcontinental flight, and about eight months before that, i had a grandmal about a month after a transcontinental flight (seizures can build up for a month). suffice it to say, i'm sensitive to plane travel as well. that doesn't scare me, though. before i knew i had epilepsy, i traveled to australia, a 14-hour flight. i took sleeping pills for that flight, and i had no problems. now my neuro gives me an anti-covulsant that relaxes me (i forget the name) and makes me sleep on the plane. it's better to take an anti-convulsant, as that will combat the neurological issues, while a sleeping pill will just knock you out. it also puts your mind at ease, which we both know is a huge part of epilepsy. the key is rest. when you get on the ground, you have to be strict about your rest in the beginning and make sure that you get in some intitial hours so that your body's readjusted to the time zone and such. good luck!

I have had JME for over 15 years. I have never heard that about flying. Then again, I also was very well controlled for years on Depakote, so maybe the docs didn't think it was an issue for me. I have flown overseas and domestically MANY times since I was diagnosed and never had a problem. If you are going overseas, or across the country, make sure you take your meds at the same time as at home.

Hey, Hope you're doing well. I've never heard of this flying thing either. I've had seizures since I was a little kid and have been on dozens of flights through the years without once having a seizure. I always let the flight attendant know and explain what to do in case of a seizure. My dad's job required a lot of travel so they asked my doc to be sure. She and 2 other docs said it'd be fine.