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Medication for simple partial seizures

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 19:53

For those of you who currently have, or have in the past had simple partial seizures... what type of medication/treatment worked best for controlling them for you. Also, if you don't mind sharing, what were your seizures like?

I have simple partials in my left hand and arm... weakness, gripping, twitching, full seizing... as well as in my tongue and jaw making it hard to speak breifly (though this is less often than the arm)

I have also had a couple grand mals (in my sleep/nocturnal) about 5 years ago but they are fully under control with my medication.

In the past I took tegretol (almost 4 years) which controlled things well but caused immense weight gain... so I switch to a low dose of topomax. I have been on this for almost 2 years and am back to my "normal weight" but I have a few more simple partials than I used to on tegretol... I also get B12 shots which seem to help but I have to go back once a month for those.

thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your reponses.

 

Comments

Re: Medication for simple partial seizures

Submitted by tonialpha on Tue, 2008-06-03 - 07:44

I feel like an old timer in this group! I have simple partials.  My focus is in my speech center, I have had 2 surgeries, to try to control it because each time the doctor's felt the focus was just outside. Initially they felt it was in the uncus or the anterior temporal lobe or the left temporal lobe.  I would get spots in front of my eyes and I would have a partial complex seizure.  The second surgery I had a different aura, which was a smell  or a deja-vu or the spots.  Now the Epileptologist found another focus and said it is in your posterior temporal area but close to your speech area.  I know have trouble w/ my speech and cannot talk right.  I babble, my friends say I flap my hands in the air.  I initially took Dilantin, then took Phenobarbitol, I have taken all the meds. He put me on the Vagal Nerve Stimulator. 

The meds. I take are Keppra and Zonegran, I was on Klonopin, but to be on the protocol for a medication you need to be on 2 drugs.  I felt I would give it a try.  Since I was only taking one pill.  I was on Tegretol as a test patient in the 70's and got off of it just 2 years ago because I was having a clotting problem.  I have flurries .  The flurries are continual simple partial seizures that don't stop but I am fully aware they are happening, I give myself Valium to stop them.  It does the trick.  I am on the protocol for a new drug to stop my daily seizures now.  I have stopped working  at this time and hope to get back soon.

I feel like an old timer in this group! I have simple partials.  My focus is in my speech center, I have had 2 surgeries, to try to control it because each time the doctor's felt the focus was just outside. Initially they felt it was in the uncus or the anterior temporal lobe or the left temporal lobe.  I would get spots in front of my eyes and I would have a partial complex seizure.  The second surgery I had a different aura, which was a smell  or a deja-vu or the spots.  Now the Epileptologist found another focus and said it is in your posterior temporal area but close to your speech area.  I know have trouble w/ my speech and cannot talk right.  I babble, my friends say I flap my hands in the air.  I initially took Dilantin, then took Phenobarbitol, I have taken all the meds. He put me on the Vagal Nerve Stimulator. 

The meds. I take are Keppra and Zonegran, I was on Klonopin, but to be on the protocol for a medication you need to be on 2 drugs.  I felt I would give it a try.  Since I was only taking one pill.  I was on Tegretol as a test patient in the 70's and got off of it just 2 years ago because I was having a clotting problem.  I have flurries .  The flurries are continual simple partial seizures that don't stop but I am fully aware they are happening, I give myself Valium to stop them.  It does the trick.  I am on the protocol for a new drug to stop my daily seizures now.  I have stopped working  at this time and hope to get back soon.

Re: Medication for simple partial seizures

Submitted by keppra3000 on Fri, 2008-12-26 - 20:44

keppra and trgretol has worked for me.

hope i helped you.

keppra and trgretol has worked for me.

hope i helped you.

Re: Medication for simple partial seizures

Submitted by wbj on Sun, 2009-08-16 - 21:31

I'm 38 and started having simple partial seizures about 8 weeks ago.  I have 30-60 per day and my neck and shoulders clench up, and my head cocks over to my right.  Sometimes my faces scrunches up and my eyelids flutter.  I never lose consciousness.

I actually had very similar seizures although not as many about two years ago for a period of about 3 months.  I was on Lamictal at the time as treatment for bi-polar, but that did *not* have any effect.  In fact, my psychiatrist didn't even consider testing me for seizures because I was already on an anticonvulsant (I stopped seeing that psychiatrist shortly thereafter!).  The seizures went away on their own and I had no seizures for two years without any medication.

So now they've come back.  I've had an EEG that has confirmed the seizures (strobe lights suuuuuuuck!), and an MRI that has confirmed that I do not have any tumors/lesions/scar tissue in my brain (praise the Lord for that!).

I'm currently taking 750mg of valproic acid (depakene) per day.  I've only been on it for nine days, and so far it doesn't appear to be having any effect either, although I'm willing to give it another couple of weeks to "do its thing".

I'm 38 and started having simple partial seizures about 8 weeks ago.  I have 30-60 per day and my neck and shoulders clench up, and my head cocks over to my right.  Sometimes my faces scrunches up and my eyelids flutter.  I never lose consciousness.

I actually had very similar seizures although not as many about two years ago for a period of about 3 months.  I was on Lamictal at the time as treatment for bi-polar, but that did *not* have any effect.  In fact, my psychiatrist didn't even consider testing me for seizures because I was already on an anticonvulsant (I stopped seeing that psychiatrist shortly thereafter!).  The seizures went away on their own and I had no seizures for two years without any medication.

So now they've come back.  I've had an EEG that has confirmed the seizures (strobe lights suuuuuuuck!), and an MRI that has confirmed that I do not have any tumors/lesions/scar tissue in my brain (praise the Lord for that!).

I'm currently taking 750mg of valproic acid (depakene) per day.  I've only been on it for nine days, and so far it doesn't appear to be having any effect either, although I'm willing to give it another couple of weeks to "do its thing".

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