Hi,
I've had epilepsy for 30 years.(I'm 38 now).
I was having between 5 and 10 complex partials every day (and occasional
clusters of up to 30 with about 10 seconds break between).
I had surgery about 4 years ago, where they took a section of my right
frontal lobe out (about the size of a golf ball). Since then I've had some
slight improvement, combined with an additional medication (Neurontin) and
am now having up to five seizures a day with occasional days where I don't
have any at all.

My medication is:
1200mg Tegretol CR (Carbamazepine) / day
2000mg Epilim / day
1800mg Neurontin (Gabapentin) / day
30mg Clobazam (Frisium) / day

Doctors are pretty pissed off with me for not stopping having seizures. lol.
They've pretty much given up on me and now I just monitor my own meds.....by
the way, I don't recommend this to anyone.

However, life goes on, life is good. Since I don't drive a car I go scuba
diving and skydiving instead.
I am not an epileptic!! I am a person who happens to have epileptic
seizures.

Cheers.
Keep smiling.
Darryl.

Hello,

This all depends. There are cases where people have just only one seizure
every two years. According to Dutch law, these people can drive a car!
Personally, I only had one tonic clonic seizure this year and I expect not
to get another one after making some changes in my personal live (no parties
untill 06:00 AM, no alcohol, trying to avoid stressy situations as much as
possible, etc., etc.).

As you can read below, Darryl still has several seizures but decided to live
with it (does he have another choice of course?), some other persons in this
newsgroup are on medications as well but still receive some seizures, or
receive milder seizures, or receive less seizures, etc.

Note that epilepsy cannot be cured; it can only be controlled and sometimes,
there are unfortunate people that cannot be controlled (completely). Those
guys are not in complete luck but then Darryl can have a chitchat with them
to improve quality of live.

I am taking 1000 mg of Depakote daily.

Cheers,
Marco

Befor I started Tegrotol, (the only med ever tried on me)  I was
having  one complex partial every four days.  After I started taking
Tegretol, I had about one seizure every twenty days, and it was not as
noticable.

Two years ago, I moved out  on my own, the sizures now average once
every 30 days.

Seizure frequency is determined by many factors: sleep patterns,
stress, personal stimuli, ( flashing light, for ex.)  vitamin
deficiency, etc.

I lived many years without any med at all because they did not bother
me much.  I am now on med only because my neuro told me they could get
worse if I did not take med to control them.

When you have a seizure, you should write down immediately the date,
time of day,  and amount of time passed since last seizure.  Show it
to your doctor, but even if he doesnt think that is important, you
should keep a permanent record of it.  Someday, you may notice a
pattern which you can  tell your doc, or you can change yourself.
Example:  I  have noticed that 50 percent of my seizures occur on
Saturday or Sunday morning.  I now keep my  normal 7 hours of sleep,
even on weekends, and  keep the same sleep time ( 10PM to 5AM- even on
off days).  Also, I no longer drink coffee at the same time I take my
med.    I now take an OTC multivitamin, which is a good idea anyway.

One (or more) changes has worked for me.  Frequency went  down.

I am not a doctor, but I believe that  low blood sugar ( from fasting
over night) lowers my seizure threshold. ( remember I said  most of
mine occur in the morning.

Keep a record..........very important.!!!

I have had epilepsy for about 20 years. I don't post much on this board,
but I do check it out every day that I get on and read most of the mail
that concerns my problem. I have tried just about every medicine you can
name, have the VNS and had  Right Temporal Lobe Surgery. None of it
stopped my seizures. The only thing that I can say is my Neuro started
me on Carbatrol about 5 years ago and it has controled my Grand Mal
seizures, but as far as the others I am not controled.
Mike  H.