topamax and weight loss

Hi, my name is Alaine and I have never made a comment on computer before. My son, Rylee is 27 months old and was diagnosed at 12 mos. My son is now on his 3rd trial of meds with little to no sucess. Ry is currently taking topomax (new med) and trileptal (being phased out). No notice of weight loss as of yet. Ry is close to 50lbs. Ry has a cyst on the left side, temporal lobe, outside. He also has a smaller left temporal lobe. My Neuro. has advised me that neither of these two things mean anything, are not harmful and are not cause of son's epilepsy. We have no family history of epilepsy and no known cause. Ry has absence, complex anad simple partial along with gereralized seizures. Ry has recently been ill with temperature and had 5 generalized seizures in 14 hours. I am having a terrible time watching my son go through this, feeling helpless and not sure my doctor is doing everything that can be done. Help?! Alaine

GOOD GRIEF! Do NOT have surgery on this poor kid. You have NO idea how painful it is having someone cut into your skull, and because bone grows so slowly and never completely grows back the way it was, it continues to hurt as though it were just sawed into. I have days when I'm definitely insane, throwing up and hitting my head just to distract my nerves from the crushing/splitting/exploding pain in my swollen meninges and bones from the seizure surgery, and that was 17 years ago. Do NOT have surgery on this kid until every other avenue has been tried!! I took Topomax and because of the side effects, switched to Tegretol XR and have had perfect seizure control with very little side effects. Because it is longlasting, I don't have breakthrough seizures like I did with Dilantin, Phenobarbitol, and Neurontin. I would NOT recommend Depakote; I had constant abdominal pain, diarrhea, cramping, heartburn beyond belief, and thought about nothing but EATING and EATING more 24/7. I gained 125 pounds. More importantly, even when I got up to 2000 mg a day on the stuff, it DID NOT CONTROL MY SEIZURES. Tegretol XR is great stuff; at least for me. I am only taking 600 mg a day compared to the 2000 mg of Depakote and I have absolute control--no seizures for 7 years now. Listen to the doctor and epileptologist. As a child grows, a cyst will change as well, likely disappearing. In the meantime, keep a record of what he eats before his seizures, in addition to how much sleep he gets, anything that was a little unusual in the few hours before his seizure. You may find (as I have) that food allergies have a lot to do with it.