Epilepsy Diary

Well, I didn’t really expect it to last forever. Stacy had a TC yesterday morning at about 8:47am. She fell and managed to bruise up her head and neck on the shelving in our master closet.

The good news it that she only had one TC and she recovered relatively quickly. I was able to get her to stand up, walk to the bed and take her morning dose of Dilantin while she was still post-ictal. She seemed fully conscious about 15-20 minutes post seizure. She claimed no headache afterwards which really surprised me because she looked like she had been run over by a truck.

We had been blessed with a bumper crop of Satsuma oranges (tangerines) from her parents’ trees and we think her seizure was likely a result of her eating too many of them (busting the simple sugar restrictions of her diet). She had eaten 3 of them in addition to some birthday cake (friend of our youngest son) and who knows what else the day before. In the week or so prior, she had been eating at least one orange a day in addition to cookies (that I’m aware of).

She’s doing fine this morning and she’s got a renewed determination/appreciation for her sugar restrictions. No more Satsumas/cookies/etc.

Stacy managed to go tonic-clonic seizure free throughout 2010! She’s gotten *much*, much better at managing her diet, meds, sleep and overall life/stress/schedule balance.

She still occassionally has a small CP seizure (maybe once a week or two). By small, I mean they are almost like absence seizures. Very short duration and post-ictal periods. Maybe 30-45 seconds from start to finish. They mostly occur in the evenings when she’s been sitting on the couch watching TV for a while.

Just to recap, Stacy is currently eating a pseudo-LGIT diet (she only limits her intake of simple carbs), taking 400-500mg Dilantin (adjusted from 400-500 and back as necessary) and getting 9hrs/sleep a night. She jumps on a small trampoline (~$40 at Academy) to help combat water retention issues which we believe exacerbate problems around her menstruation period. She also take a host of other pills that are mainly vitamins/minerals, but I don’t have a list of them on hand.

Seems to be working so far. Best wishes for 2011!