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Keppra is bad
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 00:19I've been prescribed 1000mg Keppra to be taken twice daily.
Here are my side effects:
crippling morbid depression, uncontrollable anger and irritability - i have never in my life felt so depressed that i've wanted to kill myself until taking this medication. i've always been pretty upbeat, if a little irritable due to some minor everyday life stress like paying the bills. Now, i need to focus all of my daily attention just to suppress the suicidal thoughts and anger, like i'm a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. My neurologist says it should level off after 4 or5 weeks and then i'll feel "normal". Yeah, as if feeling like i want to die constantly is "normal".
loss of appetite and nausea - i have to force myself to eat because i don't get the urge anymore. if i don't eat, i get headaches from low blood sugar. Before taking the medication, i was a serious foodie, to the point of seriously considering being a chinese restaurant critic. Now, i can't even look at a pb&j sandwich without feeling sick to my stomach. My neurologist says i'm 75 pounds overweight anyway so its good for me to lose some weight. Feh. I'd rather have seizures than lose my love of food.
extreme sleepiness - i'm napping 5-6 hours in the afternoon, as well as sleeping my normal 7-8 hours at night. Tell me how 14 hours of sleep a day can possibly be good for you? My neurologist says not to talk to him about it until i have a sleep study done for sleep apnea. Bogus. I've never needed more than 6-7 hours sleep a night ever in my life until taking this blasted medication.
Those are the 3 major ones. I found that taking a multivitamin with b-supplements helped for about 2 days, then kind of just stopped working.
Anyone else wanna post their Keppra side effects? Maybe after a while, someone will listen.
Re: Keppra is bad
Submitted by jenstau on Mon, 2010-11-22 - 21:02
Hi, I know this is a really old post so you may not even get this, but I was just wondering what dose you were taking when you titrated the keppra slowly. My doctor just put me on this med after I had terrible side effects to topamax and the allergic reaction to lamictal. I was just diagnosed a month ago so keppra will me the third med I have tried ever. The side effects scare the crap out of me, especially after how the topamax made me feel. My doc said he thinks I am sensitive to medications so he's starting me slow on keppra. This is how my dosing will go: 250 mg at night for three days, then 250 mg twice a day for a week, then 500 at night & 250 in the morning for a week...etc. Basically I'm working up 250 mgs a week until I get to 500 mg twice a day and we will see if that helps my seizures. I'm thinking about going on and just taking 250 mg for the first week instead of only 3 days. I just took my first dose tonight so we will see, but I'm still scared. Any thoughts?