HealthyWomen “Women Succeeding with Epilepsy” blog tour

Do you know someone in your family, friends, co-workers or anyone else who has Epilepsy? When I was a young child I suffered many different kinds of seizures and they were not fun at all. The one part that I dislike about having seizures is that I lose a lot of my long term and short term memory. I have a few friends that have suffered or suffer from Epilepsy and one of the scariest things for them to worry about is driving. Driving with having the disease is a scary thing to see because you never know when you will have another episode. I have not had a seizure since I was 8 years old and while I know I should be in the clear it's always in the back of my mind of it happening again. One of the key things that you have to realize is that the technology and knowledge of the disease is more advanced than it was 21 years ago. Thanks to a wonderful online site called "Healthy Women" is that you can learn new things to help you deal with your symptoms. You can also view a lot of video's as well which I have watched them and they are very helpful. I love having this site to share with all of you and wished that my parents and family had this to use when I would have a seizure. It would have been much easier to deal with the feelings that they went through when it would happen.

Ten Steps to Supporting Someone with Epilepsy:

1. Communication is the Key. For someone or a child who has Epilepsy it can be a scary thing to have. The reason being because you never know when you can have an attack or when it will strike. If you feel like something is not right, try communicating to the child and or have them tell you what is wrong. That way you can be in a mode to get them to safety. 
2. Make Informed Decisions. What you want to do is to make the right decision to keep the child as safe as you possibly can. Plus if you notice that the attacks are happening at certain times of the day, see if excluding them from whatever they were doing at that time and see if it helps out. (I personally have to do this with having my food reactions and it works.) This also helps keep the stress level down for everyone too.
3. Guide your child toward activities to where they will succeed in. One thing that my parents found comfort and something that I personally enjoyed was dance. I was in dance for many years and taking dance gave me a feeling of that I was not a failure for having seizures. It made me feel normal to be like everyone else and to have fun. 
4. Remember: To care for someone else, you need to take care of yourself first. Although you will be taking care of your child or a child, then you need to make sure that you are taking care of yourself too. Walking around in a daze not knowing what is going to happen next or trying to stay awake because you're not too sure if an attack will happen then is definitely not healthy. We need to be healthy to help take care of our loved ones. 
5. Always be prepared. As usual you never know when an attack is going to happen so staying prepared is always a must. You can have blankets on hand and also can have a mouth gaurd or tongue gaurd in so that they don't bite their tongue. Also make sure that you have all of the necessary medicines on hand as well. I know that giving someone some epinephrine is sometime needed to help slow your body down to where it needs to be including your brain. Have a cell phone with you at all times so that you can call for help. And if you have another child then have a backup for them to go to while all this is happening. 
6. For an adult here are a few to keep up with as well. Talk openly. keeping the lines of communication up is something that is needed. If you as an adult just feel funny or like something is not right let someone around you know. Also if others have questions about Epilepsy then let them know it's not contagious or anything else. 
7. Do your homework. If you are new to Epilepsy then you must do your homework to figure out what plan to take or what road to go down in case something were to ever happen to you. 
8. Be a cheerleader and advocate. Helping others out who have epilepsy is something that everyone needs to stay up with. It's always helpful to everyone who already knows about the disease to share something to those who know little about this seizure diagnosis. 
9. Offer to go to appointments. For those of you who have a parent, friend or someone else who might have Epilepsy then going to an appointment with them is something that would be helpful. Just having someone there with you to those appointments really touch people's lives. 
10. Always carry important numbers with you. Something that not many people realize is that if there happens to be an emergency, they can't communicate with you so keeping those numbers handy for others is something that is very helpful as well.

I am sharing the Women Succeeding with Epilepsy Website with you all because I want to share this awareness with you all. Epilepsy can happen at any time or moment for many women who aren't sure they even have it. It's something that we all must battle through with either friends, families, strangers or even ourselves. Let's help make the world a better place by spreading the awareness out to everyone! I am:)

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of HealthyWomen’s “Women Succeeding with Epilepsy” sponsored by UCB, Inc. and received a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”