Epilepsy support groups

An article by Dr. Held. 

If you have never suffered with epilepsy, you can not possibly begin to imagine the horror of this debilitating disease. There is no simple answer to the question what is epilepsy. In essence, it is a misfiring of the brain. Certain regions will behave in a hyperactive fashion, causing seizures, hallucinations, loss of control of the body, and other strange disorders. When I have an onset of epilepsy, it is like nothing else I’ve ever felt. Without the help of epilepsy support groups, I wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

There was a time before I ever came in contact with an epilepsy support group. Honestly, I thought the problem would soon go away on its own. There were many promising drugs for epilepsy at the time, and it seemed like it was only a matter of a few months before I would find the right medication. Then I would never have to suffer with the epileptic seizures again. What I didn’t know is that for many people, epilepsy is a lifelong condition. Epilepsy support groups are there to help you. Although I have friends from all walks of life, there is a special bond I have with people who have gone through the same things that I have gone through. They know what it’s like to be me, and I know what it is like to be them.

Epilepsy support groups used to be few and far between. When I was a kid and first came down with epilepsy, a support group was actually one of the first things that my mom looked for. She figured that epilepsy support groups were a way to help me cope with the problem. A lot of the kids thought I was weird, and I had a lot of trouble making friends. It turns out, however, that we could not find any epilepsy support groups in the area that we lived in. It was years before the first one opened. I actually helped to start it.

I used to think that I didn’t need epilepsy support groups, but I was wrong. In reality, it is always good to have people who understand you. If you suffer from a difficult medical condition such as epilepsy, the only people who can really understand you are others who suffer from the same thing. That is why I would recommend epilepsy support groups for anyone with epilepsy, or for anyone with an epileptic in his or her family.