How did my seizures start?

[Stinkpot]

All my life it was said that my epilepsy was hereditary cause my grandma had it. My aunt started having seizures last year, but she's like 40 something - isn't that wayyyyyyy too old?

I started having seizures when I was 15(I'm 24 right now). My grandma started having seizures when she was 18.

I have never abused dangerous drugs.

I have never had any head injuries.

Although I hate saying this as it's something personal, when my mom was pregnant with me, my dad and her got into an argument and he hit her(he didn't punch her, he threw her against the wall) and she started bleeding from her vagina. Luckly, I was born healthy and had no birth defects - but could there be a link to this?

I'm having second thoughts about my epilepsy, though. Is there any other reasons?

 

[momof3boys]

Sometimes there just is no explaination as to why someone developes Epilepsy. Lots of people can get it when they are older, and some are born iwth it. For me, I had seizures as an infant, but my parents didnt put the clues together til I was 18 months when my dr offically dx'd me with Epilepsy. Now my mother thinks it could have been due to when she was in labor with me. I guess my heart rate went down really low and back then the drs didnt really move all that fast to get the baby out. She said it was probably down for about half an hour or so. Now my pediatric neuro thinks its a possibility that it could be de to that. But we dont have no def answers.

As long as youre treating the seizures with medications, or seeing a dr, the best we can all do is just try to live life the best we can and make sure we take care of ourselves!

 

[Cint]

I started have CP seizures when I was 23 years old that progressed to TC seizures. There is no history of brain injury, encephalitis, meningitis, etc. nor does anyone in my immediate family have epilepsy. Never had health problems until epilepsy. Now I have numerous problems and have tried multiple drugs, had brain surgery and have the VNS and still have seizures on occasion.

There are others on this site who started having seizures in there 30's or 40's, so no, 40 something isn't way to late to start having seizures.

Could yours be catamenial seizures (seizures that occur during your period)?

 

[Loopy Lou]

I had partial seizures from when i was young, but i wasn't diagnosed with epilepsy until i was 22 and someone actually witnessed me having a tonic clonic. It was when i read into it that i realised i'd been having partials and nocturnal seizures for a long time, and just never connected the dots.

There's a genetic link on my dad's side of the family with epilepsy so it's quite possible that's where i got it from. Sometimes it just happens. It's not easy but like people said, we just have to deal with it as best we can, although of course people struggle sometimes.

 

[Nakamova]

Over half the cases of epilepsy are of unknown origin. That makes it tough -- it feels like a big piece of the puzzle is missing. But in terms of controlling the seizures, the primary cause is often less important than finding secondary triggers (like certain foods, or fatigue, or flashing lights). Though not everyone can identify specific triggers, if you can, it can help a lot.

 

[petero]

I wasn't diagnosed until I was 38, 41 now..
...but I'm still not really sure if behaviors I had earlier in life could have been associated with non-tonic-clonic seizures
but the only observed tonic-clonics were at 37-38 y.o.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

I started having seizures at 23, I'm now 26. I had a seizure during my EEG which enabled them to zone in on the affected area of the brain, and during an MRI it turned out to be a cyst. I have 2 cysts one is an arachnoid cyst which is apparently doing nothing, and the other is causing the seizures.
From what the neurologist told me I've had that cyst my entire life because, they're formed during gestation. I asked why it would cause problems after 23 years of being there, he couldn't explain.onder:
From what I've read I'm actually lucky, I know what is causing the seizures, sounds like a lot of people don't. I didn't realize there were so many, not knowing must add to the frustration.

 

[Chel]

My tle started last year (possibly the year before, if symptoms crossed over with my chronic migraines) when I was 46.

I have t l e because I have temporal lobe atrophy, but we don't know why I have the atrophy. We can speculate on several possibilities, but we don't know.

I learned pretty quickly (against my nature) to forget about the "why" and move onto learning how to control/manage it. That's what is important now.