I'm fortunate in that I only have complex partial seizures, and high blood pressure. As to the exact date that my seizures were diagnosed, no one knows for sure. I was on phenalbarbital when I was a child. At age 11, I had my first tonic clonic seizure. After that, I was weened off of phenalbarbital, and started taking Tegretol. Back then, the thought was that my seizures were the result of a stroke before, during, or shortly after I was born. When I started going to my current neurologist, an MRI ruled that out due to lack of scar tissue on the brain.