Epilepsy sucks. This session is very abbreviated because when I Lifted off 65kg ready to do a set of 8 on the downward section of the pyramid I felt ready to pass out, quite an advanced sign there is a seizure en route.
Last night the seizure happened, nothing major by the feel of it, probably only lasted a couple of minutes, always fun trying to assess sleep seizures, because I'm asleep when they happen so all I get is the after affects.
On a related topic, a warning to those of you who drive on the mobile phone. Many will think this carries the potential of getting a little fine, few points on the licence and higher insurance costs because of it. I saw the paperwork version of why you may want to rethink when the muppet who hit me while driving on the phone tried to appeal the ban part of his punishment. In it was a section pointing out that if I had died, which according to the medical assessment was a 1 in 3 chance before the operation to remove blood clot from between my skull and brain, he would have been looking at a charge of death by dangerous driving and maximum of 12 years imprisonment. So if that call is really important and you feel hands free kits are just too uncool to use, think how cool you would feel getting a 12 year prison sentence for killing somebody through stupidity, and how you could live with yourself if the person you killed was a child, I know I couldn't.
Anyway back to the session, which was short and rubbish. I am wondering what to do on top weight next time, should I risk trying 75 again and assume this was just the seizure on it's way or bite the bullet and drop it to 72.5, will see next time.
Bench press
15 x 45kg, 12 x 55kg, 10 x 65kg, 8 x 70kg, 4 + 1 failure (should have been 6) x 75kg
Showing posts with label Epilepsy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epilepsy. Show all posts
14 May 2015
27 March 2015
Running 27-Mar-2015
I really, really suck at moderation, one of these days this fact will be the death of me, not today but one day.
I didn't bring running gear yesterday because I know how stupid I can be, good job. Today I had it firmly set in my mind, 'moderation' just after 2 mile mark could feel pressure around my left eye and up that area of the forehead, screaming 'chill out you muppet!' After 5 miles this either went away or I'd forgotten to take notice of it anymore and I was within target pace, and considering I finished in target as well, I was really stupid and my wife will give me such a kick up the rear for being so.
6.23 miles in 46:41 speed 8.01mph
I didn't bring running gear yesterday because I know how stupid I can be, good job. Today I had it firmly set in my mind, 'moderation' just after 2 mile mark could feel pressure around my left eye and up that area of the forehead, screaming 'chill out you muppet!' After 5 miles this either went away or I'd forgotten to take notice of it anymore and I was within target pace, and considering I finished in target as well, I was really stupid and my wife will give me such a kick up the rear for being so.
6.23 miles in 46:41 speed 8.01mph
26 March 2015
Bench 25-Mar-2015
Well one of this years targets was to have less than 4 weeks affected by seizure or illness, especially after losing most of December last year through being ill. Nearly a third of the year gone, this is the first effected one so far.
The medication I take for epilepsy hammers my immune system, one reason I would rather not take it, but dying in the night is a worse prospect so I do. So I have less and lower intensity seizures but get ill more, really hate that.
Last few days I have been tired, but lots going on so thought nothing of it. Bench session started badly with me failing to make an impact on reverse grip bench with 65kg. I dropped back to 60kg to finish the set, a little annoyed. By the time I'd finished the 8th rep of the third set I realised that carrying on would likely make me pass out and knew there would be a seizure either that night or the following. That was last night and the seizure was in the night, as fortunately all mine are.
I deliberately left my running gear behind because I am stupid enough to try that even knowing it could literally endanger my life. Deadlifts are supposed to be this evening but in truth that may get delayed. Epilepsy sucks.
The medication I take for epilepsy hammers my immune system, one reason I would rather not take it, but dying in the night is a worse prospect so I do. So I have less and lower intensity seizures but get ill more, really hate that.
Last few days I have been tired, but lots going on so thought nothing of it. Bench session started badly with me failing to make an impact on reverse grip bench with 65kg. I dropped back to 60kg to finish the set, a little annoyed. By the time I'd finished the 8th rep of the third set I realised that carrying on would likely make me pass out and knew there would be a seizure either that night or the following. That was last night and the seizure was in the night, as fortunately all mine are.
I deliberately left my running gear behind because I am stupid enough to try that even knowing it could literally endanger my life. Deadlifts are supposed to be this evening but in truth that may get delayed. Epilepsy sucks.
16 October 2013
Squats 15-Oct-2013
There are 2 people in my life worth losing sleep over and one of them needed additional care on Monday night, meaning I ended up tired and was stressed on Tuesday. Combination of this and just time since last seizure meant I ended up having another last night.
I didn't know this was coming before squats, assumed fatigue was just tiredness, too tired to notice the difference. Got up for third set, felt instantly dizzy and tired so decided not safe to continue, was annoyed last night when stopped, this morning I am glad I did.
Squats
Warm up 3 x 10 x 70kg
Sets 2 x 10 x 120kg
I didn't know this was coming before squats, assumed fatigue was just tiredness, too tired to notice the difference. Got up for third set, felt instantly dizzy and tired so decided not safe to continue, was annoyed last night when stopped, this morning I am glad I did.
Squats
Warm up 3 x 10 x 70kg
Sets 2 x 10 x 120kg
12 August 2013
Running 12-Aug-2013
Those who do follow this will have noticed a subtle lack of activity at the end of last week.
The joy of the medication I take for epilepsy is that it makes seizures either not happen or less severe. Unfortunately there is often a cost, and that is drawing out the tired feeling before and after, leaving me unco-ordinated and too fatigued to train or function particularly well.
I ran today, but am unsure if squats this evening will be a good idea or not but I will find out.
Started out this run with plan to be a steady one and to be fair it was hardly the stuff of legend, but it was quicker than I expected because I like to feel as though I have trained at the end of a workout.
5.38 miles in 42:50 pace 7.54mph
Temperature and humidity were higher than I like but that wasn't too bad.
The joy of the medication I take for epilepsy is that it makes seizures either not happen or less severe. Unfortunately there is often a cost, and that is drawing out the tired feeling before and after, leaving me unco-ordinated and too fatigued to train or function particularly well.
I ran today, but am unsure if squats this evening will be a good idea or not but I will find out.
Started out this run with plan to be a steady one and to be fair it was hardly the stuff of legend, but it was quicker than I expected because I like to feel as though I have trained at the end of a workout.
5.38 miles in 42:50 pace 7.54mph
Temperature and humidity were higher than I like but that wasn't too bad.
3 June 2013
The Bodies Priorities
As much as possible I try no to let being epileptic affect my life. Rather difficult with something so unpredictable that can be so serious you have to consider it continuously.
We have priorities and so does the body. My family are paramount in my life, which is why I take the medication for this disorder even though I hate the side effects. My training is second in my mind but unfortunately comes below work in reality because that is how I provide for my family.
There is the expression never question your spouse's judgement, look who they married, and my wife will point out where she was right and I wasn't, normally happily, but where epilepsy is concerned not so happily. She did state, and in fairness I agreed that having a seizure should be followed by a week of no training, or at least very light easy stuff.
Being me I forgot about this last week, genuinely, not conveniently. Seizure on Sunday night, squat session on Tuesday morning, no major deal session very light and didn't really notice much. Then I went for a run at lunch time, took it out of me a bit but didn't think much about it.
This is where the bodies priority list hit me hard. Epilepsy starts in the brain, the bodies number one priority, you may not think it to see some people but even if they don't prioritise their brain their body will be doing so. Following a seizure, most of the bodies resources will go into repairing the damage from this, a fact I know and knew before I even found out I had it.
I have recently injured myself, and minor as this may be recovering from it will still be relatively high on the bodies priority list.
So with all this going on in the background I gave the body something else to recover from, the net result was a run that I would have felt the effects of for a few hours was still affecting me a few days later, and I did end up taking a week off weights though not out of choice, purely because I didn't have it in me to train.
I hate being epileptic more than virtually anything else in the world and the daily reminder alarm to take my meds serves to remind me of this loathsome part of my life.
Unfortunately hating it and ignoring it will not make it go away and I have to accept that when seizures happen I have to accept it and allow my body to recover before pushing on. I am more fortunate than many, seizures that I notice the affect from are infrequent and most people can't imagine me having something like this, somehow being fit and capable stops others believing anything could possibly be wrong with me.
To those out there who have it or know people who do, it is worth remembering the effects of the build-up and recovery. I got snappy with my wife and son before and was less patient than I should have been after. It wasn't deliberate or intended to harm but it will have hurt their feelings when I did it. I apologised after and they accepted this with very good grace.
If you are the epileptic and are wondering why everyone is on your back after a seizure, it's because you'll have been on theirs for a while, be decent, apologise you couldn't help it but it was still you doing it. If you know someone who is and they are having a spate when they are unusually snappy, point it out to them, it's not nasty or picky, it could be good to bring to their attention in case it is a warning sign of impending seizure. If they are worth knowing they will thank you, though maybe after the event.
We have priorities and so does the body. My family are paramount in my life, which is why I take the medication for this disorder even though I hate the side effects. My training is second in my mind but unfortunately comes below work in reality because that is how I provide for my family.
There is the expression never question your spouse's judgement, look who they married, and my wife will point out where she was right and I wasn't, normally happily, but where epilepsy is concerned not so happily. She did state, and in fairness I agreed that having a seizure should be followed by a week of no training, or at least very light easy stuff.
Being me I forgot about this last week, genuinely, not conveniently. Seizure on Sunday night, squat session on Tuesday morning, no major deal session very light and didn't really notice much. Then I went for a run at lunch time, took it out of me a bit but didn't think much about it.
This is where the bodies priority list hit me hard. Epilepsy starts in the brain, the bodies number one priority, you may not think it to see some people but even if they don't prioritise their brain their body will be doing so. Following a seizure, most of the bodies resources will go into repairing the damage from this, a fact I know and knew before I even found out I had it.
I have recently injured myself, and minor as this may be recovering from it will still be relatively high on the bodies priority list.
So with all this going on in the background I gave the body something else to recover from, the net result was a run that I would have felt the effects of for a few hours was still affecting me a few days later, and I did end up taking a week off weights though not out of choice, purely because I didn't have it in me to train.
I hate being epileptic more than virtually anything else in the world and the daily reminder alarm to take my meds serves to remind me of this loathsome part of my life.
Unfortunately hating it and ignoring it will not make it go away and I have to accept that when seizures happen I have to accept it and allow my body to recover before pushing on. I am more fortunate than many, seizures that I notice the affect from are infrequent and most people can't imagine me having something like this, somehow being fit and capable stops others believing anything could possibly be wrong with me.
To those out there who have it or know people who do, it is worth remembering the effects of the build-up and recovery. I got snappy with my wife and son before and was less patient than I should have been after. It wasn't deliberate or intended to harm but it will have hurt their feelings when I did it. I apologised after and they accepted this with very good grace.
If you are the epileptic and are wondering why everyone is on your back after a seizure, it's because you'll have been on theirs for a while, be decent, apologise you couldn't help it but it was still you doing it. If you know someone who is and they are having a spate when they are unusually snappy, point it out to them, it's not nasty or picky, it could be good to bring to their attention in case it is a warning sign of impending seizure. If they are worth knowing they will thank you, though maybe after the event.
30 January 2013
Epilepsy is a pain in the rear
For something that has its true effect in the brain epilepsy really is a pain in the butt.
Without medication I used to feel a bit tired and more stroppy than normal for a day or so, then have a short seizure, few minutes or even seconds, feel the same for a few more days and then recover. That was when I didn't realise that brain damage I had received from some moron driving on the mobile phone had given me epilepsy.
Now I have the daily impact of medication making me tired and occasionally uncoordinated, and I really hate that. In exchange when I would normally have had a very minor seizure seconds, I feel tired for about a week, and know that this is why. One that would have been a few minutes suddenly becomes a week or so of tired fatigue and sometimes a seizure, other times gradual relief.
As someone who is very active this is a real issue. This time I have lost most of a week’s training and been too uncoordinated to risk cycling to work.
I am hoping to be back to normalish by tonight when I ride home, and definitely by tomorrow when I want to do deadlifts again, a session I had to cut short last week.
The choice I have been faced with and taken here has been decided by having family I love. The medication affects me every day of my life and I hate it, the seizures are infrequent and with one exception haven't been life threatening. So if I didn't have family there as a reason to stay alive I wouldn't take the rubbish I have been prescribed choosing to take my chances with seizures instead. However I have people relying on me and want to see my son grow up, so there is no real choice, I take the meds to avoid the potential of another that could kill me.
Symptomatic epilepsy is unpredictable and I have only had seizures at night, meaning I sleep through most of them. This also means the seizure which started investigations would have killed me as many night-time seizures do, I would have choked on my pillow. Not going to happen now have special pillow which allows me to breath face down, and is as comfortable as a foam brick, I’ve gotten used to it.
There are many things to hate about being epileptic, medication is at the top of my list, anticipation is next. I have to live thinking in terms of what would happen if I had a fit or seizure, this means I will never ride a motorbike again, I have changed the type of cycle I ride, my training is more tame and I generally take less chances, just in case. I am more fortunate than some because I have always felt signs in the build-up, but I cannot absolutely guarantee this warning so live as if there will be none.
I have also made changes to my life to compensate for the problem and the side effects of my medication. These have included trying to keep calm when tired, and dulled by neuro-inhibitors which make you feel less patient, training to be more stable and coordinated to counter the short times when the medication makes my surrounding feel less solid than they are, or literally absent and many others.
Those who give up because of epilepsy get some of my understanding but no sympathy, it is something you can fight back against most of the time, and it is rarely the most serious cases who give up. I have known a few who moan about how horrible it is and that they get seizures every time they forget their meds, sorry if you forget your meds, you are an idiot, my phone is a museum piece but it has alarm functions and these remind me to take them, not difficult in a world were so many of us have phones with us 24/7. Others who drink knowing this makes the medication useless, or who think a minute long seizure is incredibly major. Yes seizures are horrible and to some extent scary, but when it’s over get on with life as much as you can. Life is what you make it and none of us can afford to let one thing destroy it for us, the few I have met with really serious and frequent epilepsy have lived all the more knowing how short theirs could be.
This area will be a rant zone of things I wish wouldn’t happen. There are worse out there, so it’s not woe is me, just my own reflections.
Without medication I used to feel a bit tired and more stroppy than normal for a day or so, then have a short seizure, few minutes or even seconds, feel the same for a few more days and then recover. That was when I didn't realise that brain damage I had received from some moron driving on the mobile phone had given me epilepsy.
Now I have the daily impact of medication making me tired and occasionally uncoordinated, and I really hate that. In exchange when I would normally have had a very minor seizure seconds, I feel tired for about a week, and know that this is why. One that would have been a few minutes suddenly becomes a week or so of tired fatigue and sometimes a seizure, other times gradual relief.
As someone who is very active this is a real issue. This time I have lost most of a week’s training and been too uncoordinated to risk cycling to work.
I am hoping to be back to normalish by tonight when I ride home, and definitely by tomorrow when I want to do deadlifts again, a session I had to cut short last week.
The choice I have been faced with and taken here has been decided by having family I love. The medication affects me every day of my life and I hate it, the seizures are infrequent and with one exception haven't been life threatening. So if I didn't have family there as a reason to stay alive I wouldn't take the rubbish I have been prescribed choosing to take my chances with seizures instead. However I have people relying on me and want to see my son grow up, so there is no real choice, I take the meds to avoid the potential of another that could kill me.
Symptomatic epilepsy is unpredictable and I have only had seizures at night, meaning I sleep through most of them. This also means the seizure which started investigations would have killed me as many night-time seizures do, I would have choked on my pillow. Not going to happen now have special pillow which allows me to breath face down, and is as comfortable as a foam brick, I’ve gotten used to it.
There are many things to hate about being epileptic, medication is at the top of my list, anticipation is next. I have to live thinking in terms of what would happen if I had a fit or seizure, this means I will never ride a motorbike again, I have changed the type of cycle I ride, my training is more tame and I generally take less chances, just in case. I am more fortunate than some because I have always felt signs in the build-up, but I cannot absolutely guarantee this warning so live as if there will be none.
I have also made changes to my life to compensate for the problem and the side effects of my medication. These have included trying to keep calm when tired, and dulled by neuro-inhibitors which make you feel less patient, training to be more stable and coordinated to counter the short times when the medication makes my surrounding feel less solid than they are, or literally absent and many others.
Those who give up because of epilepsy get some of my understanding but no sympathy, it is something you can fight back against most of the time, and it is rarely the most serious cases who give up. I have known a few who moan about how horrible it is and that they get seizures every time they forget their meds, sorry if you forget your meds, you are an idiot, my phone is a museum piece but it has alarm functions and these remind me to take them, not difficult in a world were so many of us have phones with us 24/7. Others who drink knowing this makes the medication useless, or who think a minute long seizure is incredibly major. Yes seizures are horrible and to some extent scary, but when it’s over get on with life as much as you can. Life is what you make it and none of us can afford to let one thing destroy it for us, the few I have met with really serious and frequent epilepsy have lived all the more knowing how short theirs could be.
This area will be a rant zone of things I wish wouldn’t happen. There are worse out there, so it’s not woe is me, just my own reflections.
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