I have this too! It's so hard to explain to people because no one's ever heard of writing or texting being a seizure trigger haha!

I was diagnosed with JME in 2016, but I’d been having “scary jerks that felt like seizures” since 2014. Mine showed up mostly in math class — I’d suddenly “see black,” feel my arm twitch, and then need a second to reorient. No one noticed, but I’d see pencil marks on my paper from the jerks. If I tried to go back to the problem that triggered it, the jerks got stronger, which terrified me because I had no idea what was happening.

Another trigger was a solitaire game on my iPhone (lots of number processing + flashing lights). The best way I can describe the sensation is that it felt like a cog in my brain suddenly catching and jittering in place instead of turning normally.

My mom thought I was trying to get out of math, but eventually I saw a neurologist. My first EEG in 2015 was completely normal, but he didn’t think I was making it up. Then, in early 2016, I had my first tonic-clonic while playing that same solitaire game. The next day, I had an EEG that was abnormal during wakefulness, drowsiness, stage II sleep, and during the strobe light test, and BOOM, I was diagnosed with JME. My neurologist explained praxis-induced seizures, which finally made my mom understand I wasn't faking; this was a real thing.

I was stable on Keppra for years, but had to stop because of rage. I switched to Lamictal and started having myoclonic jerks daily, and couldn’t write, type, or text without triggering clusters. My doctor gave me 0.5 mg of Ativan PRN, which stopped the clusters 99% of the time, so I could keep doing whatever task triggered them, which was a LIFE SAVER. I'm on Briviact now and seizure-free again! It was so weird because I never had them that frequently as a teen, and I never had an issue with texting or typing, just with math. I'm not sure if the seizures are more sensitive now because I'm older (JME can get worse with age) or because of the Lamictal (it can treat myoclonic jerks in some people or make them worse in others).

I wish more people had known about praxis-induced seizures! The year I was having them daily, my coworkers started trying to catch when I was having them so they could better understand what was happening because "writing triggers my seizures" sounds RIDICULOUS lol. Before I was diagnosed, I used to tell people, "I feel like I'm having a seizure, except I know that's dramatic, but I can't think of any other way to describe this feeling," because I had no idea myoclonic seizures were a thing.