My name's Murray Goulder. I'm 43 years old. I live in Crawley and I live with epilepsy. I went to Benenden in 2016 to get some help with my epilepsy because it's uncontrolled and I wanted to get a second opinion of how I could get some help with it. I was having approximately six to ten seizures a month and I needed to find out how I could reduce those seizures and I'd run out of options with the NHS.
Up until that point, I was having strange feelings. I thought I was seeing ghosts and I didn't know what to tell people. I was seeing what I thought was a person at the end of my bed in the night, in the middle of the night. I was walking around and seeing people in front of me. So it was things like that, which in my case, I felt it didn't really help me out. It put a lot of weight on me. It didn't really change the epilepsy in itself and I had things like lamotrigine. It didn't really make a lot of difference.
I decided to speak to my GP. I spoke about having Benenden and asked if I could get a second opinion. The GP referred me through which was very, very easy. It didn't take long to get me sent over to Benenden and see a neurologist there. It was very easy, very quick.
My Benenden Health membership, I've had it since 2012, which was when I first joined. I've used it for my neurology twice. That was for my epilepsy. I used it for getting migraines diagnosed. I've used it for physiotherapy twice and I've also used the counselling services when I lost my mother.
That's this device that I've got here. And it is a 24/7 EEG. This wire runs down to a device that sits just underneath my clothes and what it does, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it monitors my seizures and my brain waves. And I thought I was having six seizures a month and a couple of years ago I was asked to be part of a trial. And what has since told me is that I'm having about anything up to 25 seizures a month.
It's a lovely hospital and they chose a good place to build it. So, if you're waiting for things to happen, you've got lovely, lovely countryside and to look out on, it's a lovely building in itself. So it's a peaceful, calm environment. The staff at the hospital were very helpful. So when you arrived, you were shown where to go, checked in very easily.
I would definitely recommend Benenden to everyone else because it's got a lot of different services that it can offer and it's got a lot of different things that can help you with. It's quick, it's efficient and it's definitely helped me. It's helped my friends, it's helped colleagues. It's helped my family. For anyone living with epilepsy, anyone who's starting to find they've got neurological problems, don't wait, speak to your GP. Get yourself referred to a neurologist, but don't let the condition define you.
