She started having frequent typical absence seizures (tens of seizures each day) with severe impairment of consciousness at the age of 11 years, but medical attendance was sought only after her first GTCS at the age of 14 years. Severe and lengthy absences of 20–30 s occur 5–10 times/day. Also she has had 3–5 GTCS every year, mostly after awakening and mainly premenstrually. GTCS are preceded by clusters of absences. Occasionally, she also has random, infrequent and mild limb myoclonic jerks, which started at the age of 20 years. Treatment with various appropriate anti-absence drugs resulted in minor improvement, but compliance varies.

From Panayiotopoulos (2004)¹⁶ with the permission of the Editor of Medlink.