Recently disgnosed--33 yrs old--life a mess

Mary.Thanks for sharing your experience on this great site which allows us to communicate; a site that so many people should know; a site that we should absolutely send to all our friends and relatives.Communicating does help tremendously.If we couldn't do that, it would simply be nightmarish.What you are going through is not easy. Even though I am somehow lucky in that I have had surgery and less seizures since then, I know what it must be to go through your experience.Knowing that one is not alone under those unpleasant circumstances is so helpful. And that is why I wanted you to know that I did read your message. It did allow me to be in communion with you. Be in communion with me and all those who are in the same condition as we are. It does help tremendously.And let us remember how lucky we are that we have acces to the Net and this group.Vincent.

My name is Penni. I have had epilepsy since I was 10 years old. My seizures are not controlled. I take 1500 Keppra and 1300 Trileptal daily. I use Klonapin as needed. In January of 2000 I had a vagal nerve stimulator implated. This eliminated the "partial" seizures but not the com-plex partial. That was the first thing I tried after all meds failed.I have an angel of a husband. He takes me everywhere I go. I do work.In May of 2003 I started my journey towards possible surgery. Got all the way to the day of a brain resection to remove the piece of brain causing the seizures and the NP and NO could not find the "hot spot" in the OR.So I am back to taking my meds, staying away from stress, yes depression is the result of meds and non-quality of life.I do know alot about Epilepsy after having delt with it for so very long. And would be happy to converse with any one.

Mary,Sorry to welcome you to the club. I was diagnosed when I was 14...finally. You see, my siezures were hidden until then. In my sleep. and the "staring" type. The signs were missed by the people who were trained to notice them. I had a GREAT neurologist. If he was still alive, I would still be seeing him. But, it still took some time to find the right medication combo to control my seizures. I'm letting you know this because it's something that a lot if not most of us have probably gone through. Unfortunately there are no guarantees. at one point I was on Dilantin, phenobarb, depakane, klonopin and tegretol (please excuse any misspellings) at the same time. I used to call myself the walking drug store. Even then, I could expect to seize at least once per year. The longest I have ever gone without a seizure, so far, is 2 years 2 months and 9 days. I haven't given up hope that it will be longer this time. You shouldn't give up hope either. You say you only have 4 or 5 big ones a day though this must be exausting. How many is this down from? I haven't been in that predicament, the most frequent I have had to deal with was consecutive days. I know how exhausted I was then. As Far as the memory, I don't remember my seizures either. I don't see how we can be expected to since we're on the floor and not exactly conscious at the time. I can say however, that since the beginning, I have stopped losing time before and after seizing. I used to remember nothing from the time I woke up until my head cleared after the seizure. After my first grand mal, my seizures never occurred later than 1 hour after I woke up. I now remember things up to the point of the seizure and even afterwards while in that "wonderfully" confused and disgusting feeling postictal state. I hope things have started looking better for you by now. If not, I hope that they will soon. Just remember that there will be times that you will be depressed to the point of the "Why me's?". There's nothing wrong with that. I still go through it once in a while (I've been dealing with it for 31 years now.) We're only human. I know it ain't easy, but try to keep smilin'!