I haven't always understood them and if feel needed, I wouldn't hesitate asking the Dr. what it meant. Or ask if he'd write it down so if need I could reread to remind myself.

I agree with Jax. If I don’t understand or know what they mean I simply ask my neurologist what they are and mean. He would rather spend the 2-5 minutes explaining it to me than having me say ok not knowing what it is or means. If he doesn’t he knows that I will ask his head nurse and have her ask him and relay what he says; so he will tell me himself and save time having me keep asking questions or looking up the answers on the net and then finding out the information is/ was wrong. They can mean different things to different drs. That’s why we ask the specialist for the meaning. Even my gp has called him and has asked him to explain my story to him so he has a better understanding of what I’m going through and how to deal with it.

What do I think about them? Great. Do I understand them? Nope... Put it this way when you need to research every single time a complex term comes up in a report you see why you should just leave it up to the neurologist. They can literally read it like they are reading a artical.

I worked in veterinary medicine so the abbreviations are the same and I understand them. As for renaming everything every couple of years, it is frustrating, but as the science advances the names need to keep up. When I first start have seizures they were called grand mals, now they are called tonic clonic.