Hi Mary,

Don't ask. New Government with different political colours.

Forgot to tell that I had the same politically correct smile on my
face...hehehe. I thought the exact same thing.

Of course! I think it is quite fair because if you use a specific service,
then you pay for it. As I can afford to pay for it, I do not care of paying.
But this is just bureaucratic nonsens to have me call the GP, ask him/her
for a prescription and then pay for the service the GP provides. What
happens is that the GP then fills in the form and sends it to me. I fill
down the insurance form and send it to my insurance company. The insurance
company then administers how much the invoice for that service was so that
it can be calculated at the end of the year. At that time, I still do not
have my medicines. I only have my script.

If this "chap" would have given me the script for a whole year, then the GP,
the insurance company and myself do not have to start exchanging notes with
each other by postal service.

Yes, I gave my previous neurologist some time (exactly six months to know
better / learn more about the epilepy game and how to deal with patients),
but I think I have to start all over again with this new chap. As he needs
more time, I will see him next year. Poor me I guess? :-)

Anyway, only good news today for me Mary.

I am getting new doctors every time I am having an appointment in the
hospital!

My doctor states that "with my type of epilepy (primary generalized), I
cannot really have any other type of seizure then a tonic clonic one.
Absence type of epilepsy which I had before, is unlikely to return as this a
child epilepsy (easy one because that is something you can read on every
webpage / book). Of course, everything is possible, but that strange feeling
in your head is probably caused by side effects of the medicines you are
taking though it is strange that your are still having this one year later"
(I told him this started recently).

I stated to him that there are many types of epilepsy, which means different
type of seizures and a combination of seizures is possible but this
neurologist (which was in fact a person that is still learning to become one
as we are talking about an academic hospital where all these kind of
nextdoorneurologists think they are the King and we are their slaves)
assured me that in my case, this is unlikely.

In defense of his advice, the motto of epilepsy treatment is: "No seizures,
no side effects". So, while I had my EEG, I did not had a seizure but I was
uncomfortable (I did not feel  dizzy or something but again, I felt strange
and was not surprised they saw something). The outcome was: epilepsy
activity was found though I did not had any seizures during the EEG test.
So, in defense of his advice, I am diagnosed with epilepsy, I am having a
low dose of medication and it will take four or five years before they will
boot up the EEG test machine to see if all epilepsy activity is gone. So,
this means that at the moment epilepsy activity is still there but it will
not result in a seizure because of the medication I am taking. Correct me if
I am wrong. This epilepsy activity can of course give me some unpleasant
feelings.

The facts are however, and I quote now: "you are prescriped with the lowest
dose of medicines a person of our size / length / age , etc. can get. We
normally start with 1500 mg". In the beginning I felt dizzy in a different
way -while walking during for example my lunch break. That started after a
couple of weeks ago after I began to take medicines. Now we are almost one
year later and I do not have this anymore -however when I intensively watch
television, I get this power down feeling. I then shake my head or stand up
to do something and it is gone.

As for driving, etc. In mid February I can start driving again from legal
point of view, however I do not know if I really start driving again at that
date, because I do not need to drive and one year of seizure free period, oh
well, it is just one year, 365 days, etc. -not much in one human live. Maybe
I wait a bit to see where this power down button is located so that I can
fix that issue myself because one cannot trust a doctor as they are still in
learning mode. Maybe they slept when they learnt for their epilepsy exam,
got a couple of multiple choice, he choose the right questions and voila, he
can help patients diagnosed with epilepsy -oeioeioei.

Exactly! I now know lots about epilepsy to know that this is bullshit
advice! (hehehe)

Yeah, I am still mad about this. I hate these kind of bureaucratic idiots
-those guys think they are too good for this world to write down a
prescription. Just getting the right answers on his multple choise epilepsy
chapter exam, does not mean he is qualified to treat me this way!

Cheers,

That's an aspect I hadn't thought about but of course you're right ...

Mary