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Help, I'm losing hope for my 19 year old son
Thu, 03/12/2009 - 18:32I am the Mom of a 19 year old son that was diagnosed with primary generalized epilepsy 2 years ago after his first tonic-clonic seizure and it has been a bumpy road we've traveled ever since.
He was put on lamictal and it took about 7 months to get to a place that controlled his seizures. That lasted about 6 months and then it got worse. His Dr. took the lamictal up to 700 mg and he was still having an occasional seizure (always in the mornings) so he added keppra. The first few weeks of being on Lamictal and Keppra, was the angriest I've ever seen him. Fortunately that side effect went away. He now takes 400mg lamictal and 4000 mg Keppra. He went away to college this last fall and the first semester he did well, only having 2 seizures because of missed meds-but as time has gone by he's started having severe anxiety and is becoming more and more depressed.
His main triggers are sleep deprivation (he's always had trouble sleeping and now it's even worse) and stress. He's had a couple of bad seizures alone in his dorm room-the last one left him with rug burns on his face, arm and feet and a scratched cornea.
He doesn't take very good care of himself-he eats sporadically, rarely exercises (he used to play lacrosse and was quite an athlete) and his sleep patterns have gone from bad to worse. He also likes to drink on weekends, and now has discovered that smoking pot helps him relax. He says he doesn't feel normal and is always stressed out and feels he doesn't have any friends.
His Dr. just put him on Lexapro to help with the anxiety-so I pray that it will help him feel more like his old self again. My heart is breaking and the stress this is putting on our family has been overwhelming at times. My goal and focus right now is to help him through this-luckily he's only a little over an hour away so I can go get him when he needs me.
If any of you have any ideas, advice etc., that would help him I would really appreciate it! I so want him to be able to do the things he would like to do-but it seems that the things he loves doing the most (art, lacrosse)are the things he's left behind because he says they stress him out the most.
I'm losing the hope I had that he could have a "normal" life and find happiness along the way, now I just pray thay he'll survive.
Re: Help, I'm losing hope for my 19 year old son
Submitted by elxtuner on Wed, 2009-06-10 - 10:38
I am sorry to hear what it going on with your son. I feel lexapro would not help as much as some other anti anxiety prescriptions would so i would talk to the dr more about it. I also play lacrosse, and have epilepsy so i can understand a lot about him. He needs to eat a lot better, and drink a good amount of water. I know the depression and everything added factors into his bad eating habits. Just remind him he is not the only one with the problems, and that they will get better soon. I just think there is more your dr could be doing because i always felt lexapro was a horrible drug and only caused things to get worse. On a happy note, next year i am traveling overseas to play in thr world lacrosse championship against 31 other countries. Possibly that will help your son understand that even though some of us are limited bc of our seizures, that it won't limit our dreams. Let us know what happens.