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I was diagnosed at 14(after my first seizure) with JME so that makes 25 years for me. Sometime I wonder if I was born with it since I do have a distant cousin who also has epilepsy(not sure which kind).
Brain,
What kind of Lab Work would I ask for to find out if my sons epilepsy is hereditary? Or maybe I miss understood and am not sure what the blood work would show.
When I had mine done, it nearly tore my family apart! The Doctor told my parents and I it was a DNA trait and all genetic and started to ask my parents a bunch of questions, more so on my mom's end than my dad's. My mom and dad were really upset and they were worried about my sister if she's got it too and he said the chances are 'probably'. My mom called her mom and had a long talk on the phone and they got into a fight. I was in tears. I never saw my mom so upset like this before. My dad talked on his cell with his parents and the only thing he got was that his mom could only remember his great-aunt was put away to a mental institution but she did not know what for. But she knows that her sisters who married and had children had 'strange children' who had to go to a special State institution, but they never said why. There was no way for them to talk to anyone as they're all dead for years. One week later my grandma called back and then tells my mom about her oldest sister of how they had to put her away because she would be wild as an Indian making a strange noise, falling on ground, and the parsonage told them she was demon possessed. They tried to cast demons out of her and could not. And her second eldest sister had the same spells later on after a bad bout of whooping cough and fevers, and they had to put her away. All there was left were 2 brothers and 2 sisters and we were instructed by our father never to talk about our elder sisters for they brought shame and disgrace to the family. On the next appointment the Doctor appreciated this information and was able to let me know that my children would face the possibilities of having epilepsy if I were ever to find a woman and get married.
I had epilepsy as a baby until I was about 3. I was taken of meds until I was 7 though. The drs thought I'd outgrown my epilepsy.The seizures I had as a baby were grandmal seizures.
When I was almost 25 I started taking seizures again and was rediagnosed with epilepsy. No one knows why I went 22 years without having seizures. The seizures I have now are only mild seizures. My neurologist told me that the seizures I take now could be auras.
Brain - No I didn't realise that.CQ - Epilepsy is KNOWN to go into Remission, if
you didn't know that.