Traumatic Brain Injury Caused My Epilepsy

My Name is Timmothy Cronen, and I am lucky enough to be here to explain my story to you all. I was in a horrible car accident in 1997 where I was severely leaving 18% of my brain non functioning. So upon losing 18% of brain matter now I suffer from a TBI that causes my seizures about 1-2 times every couple months.

Identifying my seizure triggers

I take Keppra and all that medication "it doesn't work" "makes me short tempered" since I been dealing with this my whole life just about, I've been noticed most of my triggers, what to stay away from, what to eat, what not to deprived myself from, any essential nutrients, vitamins, etc. I have tonic-clonic seizures as diagnosed by my neurologist. So far, I have noticed three main seizure triggers and a couple other little ones that I need to try to avoid. They are caffeine, liquor, but the big one that I need is not to be sleep deprived that means I have to get at least 5-8 hours of sleep every night if I don't it will catch up with me and ill have an "episode seizure".

Doing what works for me to manage my seizures

There also small things like stress that will cause me to have an episode. My last seizure was because lack of sleep it lasted 4 mins and I was asleep for 6 hours after. These episodes can be scary to some who aren't familiar with these seizures before. That was the beginning of this month actually. Early on, I noticed that marijuana helped so I will take my medicine but only on occasions when I need it but taking it daily makes me short tempered and I don't like that. Marijuana helps a lot with managing my seizures, so that is why I'm in the works on getting my medicinal marijuana card so this can be a part of my regimen.

Not letting my epilepsy stop me

Having recently moved I now need to find a new neurologist in my new area which shouldn't be too difficult, however, dealing with my epilepsy now that I'm an adult is a lot of responsibility! I'm now 27 and have been dealing with this on my own since 16 starting to live on my own. One thing I will not do is let this hold me back from achieving my goals in life!