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Aged 30-49
Interview EP26  

Interview EP26

Age at Interview: 42
Sex: Female
Age at Diagnosis: 6
Background: Voluntary charity work; single, no children.
Brief outline:Diagnosed with epilepsy in 1966. Has poorly controlled epilepsy and has tried various drug treatments over the years. Current medication: Slow-release carbamazepine (Tegretol Retard), gabapentin (Neurontin) and levetiracetam (Keppra).


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Advises against blaming everything on the epilepsy and letting depression overwhelm you.

 



But really, yes, people spend a lot of time telling you what you shouldn't do, what you can't do, how to be safe, and I think if you follow that too often you end up feeling you're worthless. Put that together with a lack of independence if you're in a position where you can't drive, or it's not maybe safe for you to live at home by yourself, it can be very frustrating, that would create a lot of depression. The depression will just bring you down and down and make you far more likely then to have seizures. You're less resistant to anything then aren't you, if you're at a low ebb it's far more likely that you'll have seizures.

...You can very easily fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself and then blaming everything on epilepsy because it covers so many aspects of life. If one thing happens at one end you can blame something at the other end and say it's epilepsy and use it as a tool against yourself. That's something you've got to be very careful of I think and that's a reason why you do need good friends around you. They don't necessarily need to be friends who have an understanding of epilepsy, just good friends.  And most people have at least one or two good friends.
Jonathan Miller - Epilepsy
Epilepsy
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