Yeah [laughs], memory loss is really bad. I can’t remember anything no more, I used to have a good memory but now so forgetful. And my balance, I just fall over nothing, I just wobble everywhere and stuff like that. Sometimes it can make me

feel really tired, just when I’ve taken one like an hour after I’ve taken one you are just tired, really tired of them.

They [medication] definitely make me more emotional. Like before I was taking them I used to just like be fine, I wouldn’t cry about anything, but now if a movie comes on I cry over slushy movies and stuff, and I never used to do that. They do make me a cry a lot easier, I’ll just cry about anything now. Stupid things which I never used to [laughs].

You said about the memory loss, can you tell me a bit more how that affects your daily life?

Really badly, like if someone’s says, like that I forget my medication, that’s one of them, it makes me forget. If someone says can you do this for me, I’ll say yeah, yeah, yeah, but then I’ll say oh text me five minutes before to remind me because I’ll forget, and I do. They’ll text me and I’ll just go oh yeah, I forgot I had to do that. I just forget everything. It’s quite bad [laughs].

And do people realise that it is because of the treatment?

I’ll say to them yeah. They’ll say like, “Ah you’re late” or something or, “You didn’t”, “You forgot to get this for me,” I was like, “Yes sorry, medication again.” They’re like, “Ah it’s okay.” They’re cool, they deal with it.

And how do you feel about that? The memory loss and the balance, and the crying’?

It does annoy me sometimes because it feels like I can’t control my emotions and my mind, and its just like aah, really frustrating. You can’t do these things, but, you just have to deal with it. There’s nothing else you can do but deal with it.

Well the first tablets I was on was lamotrigine, which is Lamictal and I found those, they worked, but they gave me headaches. They cut out what I had, I didn’t know then, but I had myoclonic seizures. And I did know but you know that was they weren’t really present or I felt they weren’t present. So it worked in that sense, but lots of headaches and I couldn’t stay on those. So they put me on Epilim (sodium valproate) and they were better for side-effects but they didn’t work, so they increased my dosage for that, I think twice or three times and I stayed on Epilim longer. Because it is a good drug for photosensitive epilepsy. So it was it was a big decision then to change over again, but you know I was offered Keppra (levetiracepam). So I was put onto Keppra quite recently and at the moment I am on Epilim and Keppra because I am mid changeover. So it’s quite difficult, the side-effects were awful. I am hoping, I am not sure how Keppra works yet. But I am sure it’ll get better but they will withdraw Epilim quite soon so I’ll be on Keppra then.

So what were the side effects like? You said they were awful?

For Keppra I was like sick, quite dizzy, but I was sleeping, you know I couldn’t get up in the mornings which was awkward with Uni. All my lectures were in the morning and I was missing a lot of time. You often get drowsiness with medication so I knew that it wasn’t a problem, but then my body didn’t seem to like the drugs so I was taken into hospital. And I just was sick, I was dizzy. It was like getting the flu but you know I was always tired, I was sleeping a lot, and I was just always tired. And it was very, very difficult. I didn’t really know what I could do to improve it.

I always felt slowed me down slightly, and that’s quite an important point. I always felt I was a couple of steps’ I mean in terms of being a massive problem in what I did, it never really came up. Like I say, the driving, I was prevented from driving but in Sixth Form I went with a group called World Challenge with some, with ten other students from my school to Africa. I ended up climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. It didn’t prevent me from doing that, it didn’t stop me from being in the first eleven for the football team for my school, I played Sunday league regularly every week, I played in an orchestra.

During that time it wasn’t, it would happen, it would be something that would catch me off guard. Whenever I was, they said it was because of stress and tiredness, so obviously it had manifested itself first before a mock exam for GCSEs, that’s how it came about. I did feel to a certain extent that the medicine did slow me down but I was active, I was fit, it just meant recuperation was a bit’ I felt for the amount of exercise I was doing, I should’ve been really on the ball and I didn’t always feel that. It didn’t really stop me but I felt I should’ve been like Superman, you know, in the sport I was doing. I felt, it’s a weird feeling to have really, ‘cos you know something’s not quite right. You know you’re a little more tired than the other people in the team, you know, and I’d put it down to the medicine really. So the medicine was probably more of a factor in, maybe being a bit disruptive than the epilepsy was.

I actually get quite bad spots on my chest, and I know that certainly with at least one of the anticonvulsants, a side effect is acne, not on the face. The way, when it started, it started when I started taking the tablets, and although I’ve got treatment for it, and you know it’s gone away because I’ve got treatment for it, if I stop the treatment for that, it would come back because I’m on my antiepileptics. And that is a side effect of one I definitely know, and I’m fairly sure this one as well. Also, the doctors aren’t really sure about this because it’s not like one of the listed ones that happens, but when I started taking them originally my white blood cell count dropped to just above, it was on the borderline between. I was basically almost immunocompromised, and, it went back up again after a few months. But then a few months and it went back down again, it goes up and down and that started when I started taking the tablets. It has been said about some antiepileptic drugs that it could have effects on the white blood cell count. And although it’s not listed direct, the doctors reckon that was what caused it. I got quite ill, I had like, about this time last year I had five chest infections between February and May. I had five separate chest infections because I just I couldn’t fight them off. And, so that that did affect me, that’s actually another effect on my daily life that I’ve forgotten about. I just go and get my blood checked every now and again just to make sure everything’s fine and you’re supposed to do that anyway to get liver function tests because of the way that the drug is metabolised in the body. So they reckon that somehow the blood, the drug had impacts on my bone marrow but I’m fine, I’m perfectly healthy so you know, it doesn’t bother me that much. It happened, but I’m okay at the moment.

Ben’A couple of tablets that they prescribed me, one of them had serious side effects to the point where they caused serious psychiatric problems and I ended up in a psychiatric ward for three days so they could sort of keep me safe and give me the necessary care that I needed to flush it out of my system.

Dad’The general opinion is that it was sparked off because of lack of sleep. The tablets that they tried him on kept him awake, I think for about, something like about, you’d been pretty well awake for about 72 hours hadn’t you?

Ben’Yeah, at least.

Dad’He developed this, they diagnosed it as’oh what was it.. Anxiety Psychosis, that’s it.

Ben’It was difficult as well because when it started off, when I just sort of noticed that things weren’t right and I wasn’t getting enough sleep and I was a bit edgy, one doctor suggested that it was probably just due to I’m getting used to the tablets. So one idea was to double the dose. I mean obviously any sensible person would take me off of them but, no he was quite sure that it was a case of doubling the dose. Which obviously really went tits up, and caused worse and worse trouble, insomnia was a serious problem. Anxiety, everything about me just changed completely, my friends noticed. But now we’ve gone through all of that and it finished off with me in the psychiatric ward and basically they said, ‘Look it’s not right, it can’t be done this way. I managed to recognise the early signs when they put me on other tablets if they were gonna work or not, and I kind of got to the point where I had to decide myself. Luckily I’ve got friends who were noticing. I’d say to them, ‘Right they started me on a new tablet now, can you sort of keep an eye on me, from the outside?. They’ll be quite discreet about it, but at the same time get to the point, so if I’m being edgy with them, they’ll say. Which is very, very handy, they’re very good to me, I think especially with the seriousness. But all the different tablets they tried, I’m able now to notice things like the insomnia, the anxiety, and now I’ve got more contact numbers and people that I can call. Nurses that I can speak to, to say, ‘Look is this right? this is what I’m experiencing, I’ve just started these tablets up. And they give me some feedback as to whether or not it’s a good idea to carry it on, or whether to stop them.

Now they’re gonna start me on a new type of tablet soon, but they’re running out of tablets to give me so they’re going for the mix of tablets, see what happens then, which could be quite interesting. But the whole aspect in general about tablets is a big’ to be honest I think it’s more of a problem for me than the epilepsy itself. I’ve managed to pretty much deal with the epilepsy, accept the facts, have a laugh about it in certain cases. But with the tablets you don’t know what’s gonna come up, you don’t know whether you’re gonna be in a psychiatric ward or you’re gonna not be able to sleep for 72 hours, whether you’re not gonna be, you know, end up being all nasty to your friends, edgy with people, it’s difficult. I think that’s probably the worst out of all of it.

How do I describe my memory problems’ it’s not immediate, it’s not short term, it’s not as though I forget where I’ve put my glasses or what I’m doing next week, it’s memory of things past. This is part of the shadow that I live in, I say looking back to the time when I was 16, it’s purely a few incoherent details I can offer, but memory to the whole of my life past is in a shadow, it’s intangible, I don’t remember things like everybody else does. And again, an issue like the depression, I ask for the memory, is this a result of the condition, or of the medication in response to the condition? I’ve, I’ve done a bit of research, very cursorily myself into if they say that the only point of irregularity inactive, on my own scans. I mean it was my looking into well what region of the brain this is, what have they established, what qualities have they established to that part of the brain, is this the issue at hand. And it’s these sorts of deeper questions that I would wish to bring to the neurologist, and really pursue because, yes I can live without a past, but it makes things difficult looking into the future when you have no reference point on which to ground yourself. It is a terrible issue for me.

Do you feel that describes your life that you are ‘living without a past’?

Quite, yes. Yes. I can’t put a finger on it.

Is that from the time that the seizures started or does it extend already beyond that when you were smaller?

I have no childhood.

I feel that whatever happens in life I will always be a little bit more slow or a little bit less creative, or a little bit more sleepy than I otherwise would be if I wasn’t on Tegretol carbamazepine. That saddens me, that really upsets me, and I’ve been at the computer at night, and it’s been like maybe over twelve at night and I’ve been quite awake and quite alert and quite happy, and I’m going, ‘What’s wrong, why am I so, why am I still awake, at this time, I feel like something’s wrong,. And I’ll go, ‘I haven’t taken my medication. So my body is so used to it now that it kind of, I notice when I’m not on medication because I don’t feel sleepy and I don’t feel doped.

And, I go, ‘Ah, well it means I’m must take my medication’, and that’s when I realise that I just think, ‘God, what could my life be like, how would I feel, what would my personality be like, if I wasn’t so heavily reliant on Tegretol. I’d like to come off it slowly but it’s, I know that it’s a part of medication and I’d just like to understand how it affects me and even the doctors have said we don’t really know why you have epilepsy, we can only give you the drugs that stop the symptoms of it really. I have to go with the doctor’s best opinion but again I was so scared of the kind of the results of what happens with epilepsy and everything and I just followed doctors orders. I didn’t complain when I was feeling doped all day, I would never complain I would just be like, ‘Nope, that’s part of what having epilepsy is about, you feel doped. And now, I feel a little bit more like well, I’m doing things now that are against the doctor’s advice and so it makes me question more what can I really get away with? And if I wanna have a good time and I feel like I’ve had a good week on medication prior to it, and I’m like right I’ll go out all night tonight and have a great time, I’ll take maybe half the medication that I’m meant to take, or I’ll skip a night’s medication and that is very very much frowned upon, and I know it is. I know it’s bad for me, but I go out and I just feel like I’m free I feel like the chains come off my back and I can run around and just be my old self before epilepsy, and it’s fantastic and I love it. Next morning I always make sure I take my medication early and I know that if I told the doctors, they’d say you have to stop, and that’s fair enough but, I’ve tried a few times now, and I feel that I can control it. If I had a seizure then I’d stop because I really have had so many seizures over the years that I really have no fear anymore.

It’s just the medication, the Keppra (levetiracetam) that I most objected to. I mean my body as well obviously. And yes dosage has been something I’ve always questioned. When they first decide the dose of course, it’s all very tentative, and they’d rather have too much then to keep them under control, maybe bring it down. I think it was a couple of times in years to come that I approached my GP and I said, ‘Please, please put me on a smaller dosage. And in fact it’s through the GP that I’m now on Tegretol Retard (carbamazepine), to allow the medication to have its duration throughout the day. I felt that with this one strong dose in the morning this is the feeling that I’ve had, that it, it was sort of like a wet wool blanket on you and it’s a heavy weight that, and it was under that means that I felt that I couldn’t function. That I couldn’t think clearly, that I couldn’t perform. And it still is, I’m on a relatively small dosage now, but it still causes me to question because I have had difficulties as I never had before, in my academic writing. I used to be a prolific writer. I think of course every anti-convalescent medication must be, have certain suppressive qualities, yes, that’s the nature of it. But yes it was to what and where, and to what extent. So it’s with that in mind that I did ask my GP to lower it, at several stages.

Yeah, you said the side effects from Keppra were very very severe. Can you tell me a bit more about those?

Oh, again, very cloudy because I was in the middle of a cloud. I can almost, I’ve taken myself back to that time, I can almost see myself not being able to see. It was like a morphemic state, it is but not, not nice at all [laugh]. For God’s sake no, it felt supremely suppressive yes, in a negative way. I felt weighed upon by this, all of my senses would diminish of course my sight, I had no interest in food, I don’t remember eating at all. It felt as though I had no function over my physical body, my mobile limbs, I think yes my legs were so weak, that I’d collapse if I didn’t have some sort of support. And I was sleeping, sleeping for the better part of the day. And I say, no I can’t continue with this. That’s as far as I can remember.

The first medication I was on was Tegretol Retard (carbamazepine). This medication was alright but I was on a very small dosage of it. I took it on a regular basis and it was making me very aggressive, but the next time I went to see the consultant, he decided to move me. Well, first of all he decided to put up the dosage so I was on 50 mg twice daily, but then still wasn’t working. I was then moved on from that medication to another medication. This medication made me lose quite a bit of weight. Now I am on the third medication which is lamotrogine 200 mg twice daily. But I’ve been told by the consultant and the epilepsy nurse that later on in life if I feel I want to put the dosage up just let them know and then, because at the moment I think I am only on 400 mg a day but that can go up to a total of 800.

Yeah. Can you tell me more about the aggression that you experienced with Tegretol, what was that like?

Yeah, the school was getting worried because me temper was getting very bad. But after sitting down, and letters being wrote to the school by the GP, saying that after new research the side-effects for the medication can be aggression. At school it did bother me, because people found out that I were epileptic and they were winding me up when I wasn’t able to like let it go past me. And it did cause a few troubles. But school were aware of that and the appropriate people were informed in case anything did happen. Otherwise I’m on new set of medication, on lamotrogine it doesn’t bother me.

So would you sort of get into fights with people or be easily irritable?

A few times if anyone had touched me or anything it would wind me up very easily, or at school called it a short fuse. That’s what they said I had. But no, times have gone on and I’ve got over that. It’s a matter of being mature as well. But school thought ‘oh he could be bit immature’, but then after realising it was medication problem then that’s what they put it down to.

Yes. And how was the school in supporting you with having epilepsy?

They set up an anger management class. I had to do anger management with a special teacher what was able to sit down for an hour or two every week. We used to sit down and talk about things. We did a diary of what I was eating on a daily basis. The school thought it could be something that I’m eating at school. Or see what lessons, see if there was chain line. If it was certain lessons that were causing seizures, stress at school that was another big thing. If I were going through quite a bit of stress with teachers and lessons and subjects, I was worried about me exams but I was all right. But going to anger management through school was pretty helpful. And if I require that now I’ve been told I can contact the epilepsy nurse, she can organise classes for me whenever.

I started University and after a couple of months we decided to change the medication, and this was disastrous in terms of switching medication. Part of the problem of being a student in one place and having a consultant in, my consultant’s in London, my doctor’s officially in my University town and obviously I spend, you know, a third of the year back in my home town anyway, in which case when I want to go to a doctors to pick up a prescriptions I’ve got to be, I’m not a permanent resident so I’ve gotta fill in forms every time I go, my permanent position is in [town name], sorry my University town.

But we, part of the problem where I’m moved medication was with all this confusion I got told to start on a new medication and not told to come off the other one, so the other one which was making me a bit a bit tired and I was on quite a high level I was still on that whilst starting to take a new medication which ironically had the effect of the previous medication made the new one stronger, double as strong so I was basically overdosing on epilepsy medicine [laughs] for, for about a month before I realised what was going on. I didn’t, I didn’t get it because I’d been taking, it was obviously a point where the medicine just got too much for my body and obviously no one had told me to come off the original medicine, I assumed they were gonna tell me that later but, as I was staging up the new medication I was not staging down the old one. And that was the problem I was already on too a high dosage for my bodyweight and it was basically like being drunk all the time [laughs] it was sort of I’d reach for a door, I’d, you know, I’d think the door was close to me so I’d literally pull and the door would be a good few centimetres behind that. I had period of seeing double vision, one day it just wouldn’t I, it was kind of cool at first like double vision [laughs] it would come five minutes and then it would go away. And then one time it just didn’t go away so I was stuck a day with double vision, thinking my eyesight had just gone completely, like doolally, and vomiting all sort of things I mean you can pretty much think of overdosing on, on anything like I had shaking, the shaking was uncontrollable, I couldn’t lift a, a cup without shaking, I mean that’s still a kind of, I think that’s a side effect, a slight side effect of some medications my hand control isn’t great but, eventually I figured out what it was and they told me to quickly come off the other one, the, the medication I’d been on originally.

And, you know, my dad came to collect me from the University so that I could sort of go and, just relax for a couple of weeks at home, have everything done for me. And I remember going to a service station, having to pick up a drink and literally my hand would be sort of just, completely, it was this the, the bizarre feeling, you know, been drunk before and this was like being permanently drunk for a month. It was scary, it was really scary I didn’t know why it was.