My mother's epilepsy is killing me!

[FORk]

My mother is 49 years old. She has epilepsy. She had her first seizure when she was 44. She is living with epilepsy for six years and in six years she had only 4-5 seizures and seeing her having her first seizure back then was shocking because I was too young and never been aware of epilepsy. But, even after realizing what epilepsy is I have always consoled myself with the fact that epilepsy is not a life-threatening disease. And now hearing about SUDEP is really shocking. I read it all of a sudden and just cannot find console that my mom may be at life risk. She had her last seizure two weeks ago during sleep, which was her next one after four years never having one. She took two antiepileptic pills in first 5 years per day and 1 pill only per day in the last year. And her doctor said that the cause of her last seizure which occurred two weeks ago was because of taking one pill per day only. So she is taking two pills per days again to avoid seizures.
I read that SUDEP has heightened the attention of all people in the last years, which scares me to death.
I wanna ask you now. She had 4-5 seizures in 6 years, she is 49 now and I read that people who are at life risk are mostly males, people from 20-40 years old and with all these things I said about my mom, is it possible that she may have SUDEP?

[rawxstasy]

I think you are overly concerned about this. Death in epilepsy is rare. It sounds like your mom has a mild case of epilepsy if she only has one seizure a year. One of my clients has several seizures per day. Adjusting medications is quite normal. It could be that the dose of one pill per day was not enough. With epilepsy, meds often have to be frequently adjusted to find the right dose.

This article may help explain about SUDEP.


SUDEP (Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy) | epilepsy.com

[FORk]

Originally Posted by rawxstasy

I think you are overly concerned about this. Death in epilepsy is rare. It sounds like your mom has a mild case of epilepsy if she only has one seizure a year. One of my clients has several seizures per day. Adjusting medications is quite normal. It could be that the dose of one pill per day was not enough. With epilepsy, meds often have to be frequently adjusted to find the right dose.

This article may help explain about SUDEP.


SUDEP (Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy) | epilepsy.com

Thanks for this!
So, you are a doctor!
Can she be healed from this? Do you men that SUDEP in her case is quite impossible?

Thanks anyways!

[Bonadea]

Retyped below, was trying to type from ipad before...

[CroMagna]

I'm not a doctor but my second boyfriend has epilepsy due to serving two tours
in Iraq. He was healthy otherwise and just had to remember to take his
Dilantin. You could always ask a doctor in person but I think she should be fine.
Good luck!

[Bonadea]

Let me retype now that I'm at the computer....

I work in health care. I've had many many clients with SEVERE epilepsy that did just fine as far as that was concerned. I had one that had several a day.

I also worked with a few people that had it and they still functioned very well.

My own mother had it as well. Hers would act up if she was getting sick mostly.

I've only heard of one person passing from it and that was because they took a big fall and had complications from that (not to freak you out, but I felt I needed to be honest).

Your mother's seems very mild and easily controlled. Giving her age, it might be due to hormonal changes. Perhaps when she is older/done with the shifting, it clear up.

[lifetimelearner]

I agree with all the responses
hugs !