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Aged under 30
Interview EP02  

Interview EP02

Age at Interview: 20
Sex: Female
Age at Diagnosis: 14
Background: Student; single and no children.
Brief outline:Diagnosed with epilepsy in 1996. Seizures have been controlled since 2000. Current medication: Epilim ( sodium valproate), and Lamictal (lamotrigine).


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Female
Describes what happens when she has an absence.

 



And it was a pain because I could either think or I could speak but I couldn't do both, which made it really difficult to have a conversation with me. I was once babysitting with my friend, I think I was about 15 or 16 at the time, and she asked me a question and apparently it was five minutes before I answered her. I didn't realise it was five minutes, but that's what she said.  So basically she'd been sitting there, I hadn't answered her and she'd been sitting there and then suddenly I answered this question and because my answer just sounded so random she was like 'What?' 

There were the petit-mals when my eyes flickered and  sometimes they could do it really, really badly, so badly that I couldn't actually see anything.  I had to close my eyes because it hurt and it was really strange because even then I would get this same feeling of helplessness and be really emotional and I'd burst into tears over anything. But I couldn't help it, it just  came with it and it was so annoying. The grand-mals were the actual fits and so there were different types. 

So yeah, that was one of my bigger stresses, rather than the fits. The fits were annoying, the eye flickering was really, really annoying because I couldn't control it, never could I control it and it would happen sometimes and I wouldn't know it, but other people could see it. 
Jonathan Miller - Epilepsy
Epilepsy
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