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has anyone noticed developmental delays with there child on phenobarbital???

Wed, 09/05/2007 - 21:58
Topic: Parents & Caregivers
My daughter will be 2 at the end of the month and she has been on phenobarb since she was nine days old. She started a drug called topamax about 2 months ago and she started doing so good that the docs started to decrease her phenobarb. The first full day of the decrease you could see a difference. She was smiling and laughing. She started to try to roll over on her own. Two weeks later they decrease the phenobarb again and told us that phenobarb is proven to cause delays in children. She now grabs for toys which she never did before. I was just wondering if anyone else had the same problem. And i wanted to give a heads up to the parents that have there children on the drug. katie

Comments

Re: Re: has anyone noticed developmental delays with there child

Submitted by EarthMonkey on Sun, 2007-11-04 - 20:02
I took phenobarbatal for a while. It made me do horrible with memory and thinking. If it could do that to an adult imagine what it might do to a baby.

Re: has anyone noticed developmental delays with there child on

Submitted by stanleyr on Wed, 2007-11-07 - 09:40
A mother of a beautiful boy - started to seizure at 4 months After reading your posting - I contacted our neuralogist and asked him about switching our medicines from phenobarb to topamax - he said he would be willing - I am just nervous - Our son has partical epilepsy and takes 1 tablet in the morning and one at night of phenobarb - but he is very much delayed - he will be 6 months next Wednesday - but he won't bat at toys, hold onto a rattle, roll over, or lift his head up on tummy time. He has just started to bear some weight on his legs when we stand him up - so far the phenobarb has been working and I fear if we change his meds he may experience side effects from the other drug - This is what our doctor said about the other drug - Topiramate (topamax) is less sedating at low doses in many children than phenobarb. In higher doses it can cause mental slowing (hence the popular names dopamax and stupormax. One of its unsual adverse effects is to impair sweating in some children, rendering them at risk of hyperthermia in high ambient temperatures. Why did you wait so long to switch medicines - and did you notice the changes right away? When did your darling hit the other milestones?

Re: has anyone noticed developmental delays with there child on

Submitted by Crystal Coughlin on Thu, 2009-12-31 - 21:50

So scary for me reading everyones comments. My son is 8 months old and we discovered that he was having seizures around 4 months old. He has been on phenobarbital 5 ml twice a day and 2.5 ml of keppra twice a day. We just tried weaning him off of the pheno because I noticed him not doing his usual things (batting at toys, rolling over etc.) . sometimes he seems to have the same energy level and then other times he just lays there with his arms to his side and legs straight out, like he wants to do something, but cant. Its so frustrating. He still can not hold up his head 100 percent, but has been getting stronger. I know its in him, but something his holding him back. Unfortunately we are back up to the original amount of pheno, because trying to wean him off only caused him to have seizures. I really want to try him on a new med, but am so worried that Im making the wrong decision. Im so scared of him having delays, but it seems like every med has some sort of side effect???

Help, any advice?

So scary for me reading everyones comments. My son is 8 months old and we discovered that he was having seizures around 4 months old. He has been on phenobarbital 5 ml twice a day and 2.5 ml of keppra twice a day. We just tried weaning him off of the pheno because I noticed him not doing his usual things (batting at toys, rolling over etc.) . sometimes he seems to have the same energy level and then other times he just lays there with his arms to his side and legs straight out, like he wants to do something, but cant. Its so frustrating. He still can not hold up his head 100 percent, but has been getting stronger. I know its in him, but something his holding him back. Unfortunately we are back up to the original amount of pheno, because trying to wean him off only caused him to have seizures. I really want to try him on a new med, but am so worried that Im making the wrong decision. Im so scared of him having delays, but it seems like every med has some sort of side effect???

Help, any advice?

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