Comment on How do people with epilepsy triggered by flashing lights, drive past trees that are backlit by the sun?

SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• bunnyBoy@pawb.social ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s the same in the US, or at least around me. Had a manager that had a seizure (thankfully just once) but they essentially had to take 6 months off because he lived far away and couldn’t commute anymore.

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s state by state. Some states don’t make physicians report, so there’s not necessarily enforcement. I waited the six months after my seizures, but there wasn’t really any mechanism by which a cop would have known if I hadn’t.

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    • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If you were to get an epileptic seizure while driving, would it strike like a lightning, leaving you zero seconds to react, or would you still have enough time to pull over safely?

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      • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        When I had them, they were very sudden. I didn’t have auras or anything.

        It was very odd. The first one I had I didn’t realize was a seizure - I was out working on a farm and woke up very confused and missing my glasses. It wasn’t until I had one in front of my ex husband, and woke up fighting firefighters, that I figured out what was going on.

        So yeah, wouldn’t have warnings if I was driving. I’d honestly be happy to never drive again if I didn’t live in a place where that was impossible - I haven’t had one in years and think I figured out why I was having them, but it is scary knowing that there is some trigger that could hit me out of nowhere.

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      • kn33@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        It depends from person to person. Some don’t get much warning if any. They just drop. Others can tell when it’s coming and/or have warning signs they can learn. A book I read as a kid had a character who heard a train horn getting louder as the seizure came on.

        Just because you can tell it’s coming doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to drive, though. Maybe you won’t get a warning next time. Maybe you’ll get stuck in traffic where you can’t pull over safely. Your faculties are already starting to go when a seizure starts to come on, maybe you’ll have poor judgement about how far you can make it before you have to stop. Maybe you’ll stop, but you won’t be good to drive when you wake up again.

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  • lukaro@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Happened to my son-n-law, had a seizure couldn’t drive for a year.

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• captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Yeah in the US epileptics have similar restrictions. And much like up there, this makes them second class citizens in most places. I don’t want them driving, buy I won’t pretend that that isn’t a major disability in most of our continent (majority by population, not even just area).

  It’s easy to say driving is a privilege when we think of the consequences of people like epileptics and alcoholics driving, but we do need to remember that it is structural and policy decisions that make it so that those who lack the privilege of operating this heavy machinery will struggle to maintain employment.

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  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That is actually pretty debilitating now that I know this.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yeah I see pro car people use disabled people as a rhetorical position somewhat regularly, but there are a fair number of disabilities that make it so you can’t or shouldn’t drive. It’s one thing if that means “too bad you have to move to a medium sized city and use a reasonably good public transit network” but in North America, that’s not what it means. It means you move to one of the most expensive cities in your country (Ciudad Mexico, Vancouver, New York, Washington DC, Toronto, Seattle, anywhere in the metropolitan US northeast) or you move to a medium sized city (not its suburbs) and catch the hourly bus when it’s operating. The alternative, which i know people who do, is to bum a ride everywhere if you’re able, drive anyways if you’re able, or basically be housebound.

      Like, it really is remarkable the difference in experience between people who don’t have a car but have a metro/light rail and the people who have neither. These are policy decisions and they can be changed.

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• Pacattack57@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The same is true in the US. When we have seizures we are reported to the dmv and get our licenses suspended for 6 months the.

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• slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Australia is the same.
  The wife of a coworker of mine had her license revoked because she started having seizures after having a kid.

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• Reyali@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The time span differs. My mentor’s husband in Missouri is barred from driving for a year after a seizure; my partner mention that it’s five years in North Carolina.

  I haven’t looked up any of the rules, but those are just examples of what I’ve heard.

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  • alternategait@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Five years feels like an excessively long time especially if someone had a one off due to illness, or a condition that is well managed medically. I wonder if there is an appeals process.

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