Head injury as a child?

[DancesWithPugs1980]

This is something a friend asked me recently when I was talking about the stuff I experience (not officially dx'd with anything, haven't been able to find a neuro that does a sliding scale). He asked if I ever had a head injury at any point in my life. He said that's what caused his epilepsy. One time when we were kids he fell out of the play-fort in his backyard... fortunately it wasn't very far off the ground, but he still smacked his head pretty hard. I actually remember when that happened- me and my brothers were over there. I didn't find out until somewhat recently that has epilepsy.

Anyway, when I was really little, around 3 or 4 years old, I fell into the basement of the house my family lived in at the time. My parents had been replacing the staircase leading down into it, so at a time when they had just removed the old staircase and it was just the frame for the new one, my mom had forgotten to put the baby-gate up and I fell down to the concrete floor and hit my head while my dad was at work. That's actually my parents' favorite childhood story about me for some reason onder: My mom in her infinite wisdom, didn't take me to the ER though. You'd THINK a parent would take their kid to the ER after a major fall like that, but I digress. From what they say, I had a huge bruise on my forehead, and when my dad got home from work I had my face pressed against the screen-door, pouting lol. He asked me, "What did mommy do to you?" and my mom started crying. I guess that's why they think that story is funny.

But anyway. That's the only head injury I've ever had. BUT, these types of things didn't start happening till I was 15 or so. That was 17 years ago, I'm 32 now; almost 33. Since it didn't start till well over a decade after the fact, could it still be a cause? Or is it just a coincidence, maybe? Still trying to put this puzzle together.

 

[Chris515]

A head injury can definitely be a cause.. and I believe that problems like E can arise 10 years down the line.

I had damage to my brain from birth trauma but didn't have my first tc until I was 12. Looking back at it, I had cp's as a child but didn't know what they were and coudln't explain them. I think my parents thought I was just being silly.

Anyways the neuro at the time told my parents that even though the damage was caused at birth, the seizures became worse and more serious when I went through puberty due to the changes to my brain at the time.

Maybe your situation is similar?

 

[Nakamova]

I had a big head injury at age 5; My seizures started 30 years later. There may have been a connection -- perhaps a little bit of scarring that shifted as I aged -- but there's no way to know for sure. Most likely it was some combination of a lowered seizure threshold (from head injury or something else) with the particular confluence of stressors occurring when I was 35.

 

[DancesWithPugs1980]

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it Whenever I get a chance to see a neuro, it's definitely something I'll bring up.

In the meantime, I'm going to be asking my mental health nurse practitioner if she'd be willing to up my lamotrigine (on it for something else), and maybe add topiramate to it again- I was on that in the past, and I seemed better-ish, even though it was being used off-label. I guess that's the upside to being uninsured... I at least get my meds fairly cheaply thanks to my state's Rx plan. Cheaper than when I actually had Rx coverage. I have to see the np sometime this month anyway. She's finally back from her month long vacation.