Why awareness is so important


There are two questions I think everybody should ask themselves “Do I know what a seizure looks like?” and “do I know what to do if I see someone having a seizure?”. If you can answer yes to both of these questions give yourself a pat on the back and a gold star!

Before you whip out your sticker chart, however, just ask yourself what a seizure looks like again …. If your answer is someone convulsing on the floor, step away from the stickers and carry on reading because whilst you are right you are also wrong!

Did you know there are around 40 different types of seizures, many of which you can’t visibly see? Did you know that 1 in every 20 people will have a seizure at some time in their life? Did you know that there are over 600,000 people in the UK with epilepsy? Or that 87 people a day are diagnosed with the condition?

You see epilepsy is far more common than you might think. The chances of you meeting someone with epilepsy and indeed needing to help them are far higher than you may anticipate.

Not only is it more common than you may believe it is also far more dangerous. Around 2000 people die each year in the UK from epilepsy related deaths. Many of which are under the age of 40.

Epilepsy is serious and yet it is so poorly understood. That’s why awareness is super important and that is why I started my own awareness charity called Purple Owl. I am going to share more with you about Purple Owl and the work we do in later blogs but for today I just wanted to share some facts with you all and hopefully get the message across that epilepsy is serious, it is life changing and it can also be life threatening. It seriously grinds my gears when people say “oh it’s just epilepsy”. Like its some sort of common cold that can be fixed with a lemsip. If lemsip could stop seizures I would be knocking those bad boys back like there was no tomorrow … but they don’t. They barely stop a sniffle.

So if you know someone who has epilepsy my advice to you would be to ask them about their seizures and how you can help them should you need to. They’re not going to be offended. Equally if you have epilepsy yourself my advice would be to tell people about it, shout it from the rooftops if you want, make people aware. Awareness is the key to fighting the stigma and changing minds. I am determined to fight the stigma ..one mind at a time.

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