My 11 yr old daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy 2 yrs ago, but between the peadiatric Neuro and me, we decided to adopt a 'watchful wait' stance on medication. We cut all artificial sweeteners out of her diet on the advice of the Neuro, and that helped, as did when we all went Gluten-Free for my 7 yr old son's coeliac, but over the last few weeks I and the school have noticed a marked difference. Now as she is 'developing' in other ways, I am assuming her hormones are probably playing some part in this, but her absence seizures are really increasing in frequency, and last week, she had one at the top of the stairs, and if my friend hadn't been there to catch her, she would have fallen down. Also last week, she was at school in her english class, and there was a faulty flourescent tube that was flickering. Now she really doesn't like to make a big thing of her epilepsy in front of her classmates, but it was giving her a headache and making her feel sick and woozy, so she asked the teacher to turn it off. The teacher did, but as the lights in the class are all on one switch, the class had to work with NO lights on!! I'm thinking, grudgingly, that it may be time to go back and start on the infernal merry-go-round of epilepsy meds....Just can't bear to see her have to put up with all the darn side effects, as I know first hand what it's like...