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Radio Host Ben Fordham Opens Up About Living With Epilepsy

Radio Host Ben Fordham Opens Up About Living With Epilepsy
ACA

2GB radio host Ben Fordham has opened up about living with epilepsy.

The former A Current Affair reporter was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of seven and described to the Nine Network the fear he felt.

“It was the fear of the unknown more than anything, and it scared the living daylights out of me,” Fordham told A Current Affair.

“As a seven-year-old, I just knew I was really scared and I didn't know what was happening to me.”

He compared his epileptic episodes to standing on top of a rapidly ascending escalator with a feeling of impending doom, and said he couldn’t do his radio and TV jobs if his epilepsy were not as well controlled as it is.

“I wouldn’t be able to do that, which is a real worry,” Fordham said.

“I don't think you can sit in a studio environment like that, live on air, interviewing politicians, or doing whatever you’re doing, if I had a bad case of epilepsy and was having serious seizures.”

An ambassador for Epilepsy Australia, Fordham went public friend Wally Lewis went public with the same condition.

People are still reluctant to talk about the illness, he said.

“I'm 38 and the only people with a public profile who I've heard in my life with epilepsy are Wally Lewis and Buddy Franklin,” Fordham said.

He said he knows of politicians and other public figures who have told them they have it, but declined to speak about it publicly on his programs.

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