About 2/3rds of the way through my PPL I suffered a couple of instances of aura, the first time with loss of consciousness for about one second. Thankfully the episodes were minor. However, I owned up, took a year off driving, had all the tests such as strobed EEG, MRI etc. Nothing was found. By the time I had been through all of the tests 6 months had passed without problems, but the docs still wanted me to take an anti-epileptic drug (Valproate) before they would sign me off for driving again. I have had not the merest hint of a problem since.
The 'diagnosis' was that the symptoms that I had described and the tests I had were indicative, but not diagnostic of a partial seisure of the temporal lobe. BTW, I found a definition of epilepsy to be "more than one unexplained loss of awareness"!
Thanks to great encouragement from my flying school I continued my training and successfully got an NPPL with the obvious endorsement that I can't take passengers. The club allowed me to rent after I got my licence, and I now have my own aircraft.
I would recommend taking a look at the JAA Manual of Civil Aviation medicine, not only for the rules (basically you will not get a JAA medical) but also for one of the best descriptions of epilepsy and the recurrent risks. If you have looked at this before, it has recently been updated.
http://www.jaa.nl/licensing/manual_c...tion_2006.html
Epilepsy is in Chapter 12, section 12.
I hope not to end up in a hole in the ground. As far as safety is concerned I often wonder how many lorry drivers admit to problems knowing they will lose their HGV licences for 10 years?
Originally Posted by
paul 2007
That's what I thought - wondered if there is anyway of proving that it was /was not epileptic, after all the doctors could not induce an epileptic episode in tests when trying to diagnose the problem.
For that matter, does anyone know if an electric shock can trigger a fit ?
One of the aviation medical companies I spoke about in my opening post claims the following:
Nuerology
Condition / Pathology ...................................................1st ...2nd... 3rd
TIA / Stroke ............................................................ ..........195 .. 250 ..747
MS ? Chronic Brain Syndrome, Degen. Nerve Disease ............. 32 ... 34 .... 81
Parkinson's Disease ............................................................ ..16 ....20 .....65
Seizures ............................................................ ..................46 ....50 ...159
Narcolepsy ............................................................ .................2 .....3 .....14
Migraine ............................................................ .................488 ..821 .2424
being number of cases successfully handled with the FAA, in each medical class.
Does anyone know of anyone that has had epilepsy and been able to continue to fly ?
Thanks