Avoiding flashing lights

Epilepsy is unpredictable and it’s even worse when you have photosensitive epilepsy. I was only diagnosed at the age of 13 even though my seizures started when I was 7 months after a brain injury.  I experienced focal and tonic-clonic seizures, with a range of triggers for my seizures. One of the triggers that I experienced as a teenager was content on television or social media, flashing and bright lights. I was able to manage this by making small changes and by thinking ahead.

Good habits

Cutting my screen time helped me a lot in managing my seizures. This was both in terms of television and phone. Furthermore, this helped me in having a better sleeping pattern. That affected my seizures as well. I also made sure to have my sunglasses during a bright sunny day as that helped me in managing migraine headaches and to stay away from the brightness of the sun as well.

Think ahead – plan ahead

Having photosensitive epilepsy got me into the groove of always planning ahead. Especially if I was going somewhere new. I tried to find out what to expect in terms of atmosphere, crowds, lighting. For example, I remember there was this place in Mumbai that had a lot of bright lights, and I really liked going shopping there. In order to better deal with this, I would go to during the day time so it would not be brighter than the natural sunlight. I grew up in India. There were many diverse cultural celebrations. My family made sure to have small gatherings at home, because going out to celebrations meant there would be festive lights that triggered my seizures.