I was 12 and my neurologists said it was because seizures ran in my family. I believe though mine came on from a head injury I had when I younger. I hit my head really hard on my swing set and after that was when my seizures started.

I was 16 when I had my first seizure. I was at work and I fell out in the floor in front of everyone. The doctors never told me why but I am confident that it came from a series of intense concussions I had from the age of 10 until the age of 12. My seizures are triggered by intense stress and lack of sleep. I am 20 years old now and it is very hard to explain to my friends why I cannot stay out with them. To everyone struggling, keep a good outlook on life. You are worthy and this does not define who you are as a person.

I was about 7 or 8 when I first started having absence seizures. These went untreated because my mother did not believe that I had epilepsy. This was probably because I had other problems and that was enough for my mother to cope with. These seizures stopped when I was about 13. I was also having regular episodes of syncope until I was about 18. I don't know if there was any relationship there. I was and still are asthmatic.

When I was 50 and had just started menopause I started having absence seizures again. It took a while to be diagnosed because the symptoms were different to when I was a child but appear to be hormone related.
I was born with deformed hands - Adactyly left hand and Symbrachydactyly right hand, plus Spina Bifida Occulta in my sacrum, also thoracic and lumbar scoliosis. My research has uncovered the existence of a gene called the Sonic Hedgehog, which, at around 6 to 8 weeks gestation, is involved in hand, feet, spinal cord and brain development of the foetus.

I was diagnosed at the age of 21 after I had a seizure while driving. I went airborne and landed 10 ft from a gas pump. Each seizure I have is worse than the last and steals more of my memory. Last seizure I had, I forgot my kids and the fact i was a mom for about 20 minutes.

I was diagnosed at age 24. I had seizures as an infant after a vaccination (didn't hear about that until after my diagnosis). I had auras throughout my childhood but didn't tell family members. I had a grand mal around age 20 but it was described as fainting and I never thought about it more. When I was 8 months pregnant at age 23 I had a grand mal but as I still did not put my seizure history together, we assumed it had some mysterious relationship to pregnancy. I had my next grand mal around 10 months later and finally got a diagnosis. I have had seizures regularly for the last 13 years, around 10-25 per year, generally increasing each year.