Community Forum Archive
The Epilepsy Community Forums are closed, and the information is archived. The content in this section may not be current or apply to all situations. In addition, forum questions and responses include information and content that has been generated by epilepsy community members. This content is not moderated. The information on these pages should not be substituted for medical advice from a healthcare provider. Experiences with epilepsy can vary greatly on an individual basis. Please contact your doctor or medical team if you have any questions about your situation. For more information, learn about epilepsy or visit our resources section.
Keppra Withdrawal?
Sun, 06/03/2007 - 21:15Topic: Parents & Caregivers
My 12 month old daughter was recently weaned off of Keppra (3 ml 2 times per day to nothing over 8 days). Since she got her last dose yesterday morning she has had trouble sleeping at night and is having tremors. Are these symptoms of withdraw or do we have something else going on here?
She has Benign Myoclonic Epilepsy of Infancy and is currently taking 2 ml of Depakene 3xs per day.
Thanks for the info.
Jenn
Comments
Re: Re: I can't believe that they
Submitted by kaitlynsmom on Mon, 2007-06-04 - 11:02
My daugther is having the insomnia and temper tantrums bad right now. She doesn't seem to have an appetite though, so I wonder if that could be different with everyone.
Kaitlyn has Complex and Simple partial seizures along with the possiblity of having generalized of second generalized seizures. We haven't been able to find out for sure what everything is because she hasn't had a VEEG yet. She has alot of absence seizures and then has the what they are telling me might be generalized when she is waking up.
Is Lydia feeling any better today?
Good luck with everything!
Emily
Re: Re: Re: I can't believe that they
Submitted by Lydiasmama on Mon, 2007-06-04 - 15:25
She seems to be better. No shaking when she woke up from her morning nap and she didn't fight the afternoon one either. She also demolished two pieces of cheese and a handful of crackers, so the appetite looks to be returning.
Thank goodness. We're still keeping an eye for seizure behavior since we did see some seizure like activity yesterday, but so far none today.
Jenn
Mommy to Lydia, diagnosed with Benign Myoclonic Epilepsy of Infancy
Re: I can't believe that they
Submitted by Lydiasmama on Mon, 2007-06-04 - 08:17
She was at 4 mls 2 times per day and they dropped her to 3 over one week. It took about 2 months to get her up to that level, but since she was still having over 50 and up to 100 seizures a day they decided to try depakene. They weaned her down to 3 ml 2xs per day over 2 weeks and her blood levels came back too high for the depakene, so the neuro hypothesized that the keppra could be making the levels too high and since it didn't work anyway he wanted her off it as soon as possible. He admitted that it was going to be faster than normal but he didn't feel like we had much choice. Because she is so young they really don't want her on depakene to begin with, but since it is working they want to make sure they don't court disaster more than necessary (the whole liver damage issue). As for side effects, Lydia had some insomnia and some crabbiness, temper tantrums as she was going on to the medication. The biggest effect we saw was a return of her appetite after months on zonegram and topomax. She seems to have lost some of her appetite on the depakene, but her reflux has also skyrocketed with it. What type of seizures does your daughter have? Lydia has myoclonics which are supposedly hard to treat. We've been discussing the ketogenic diet, but are still wary of it since they are starting to think that she has non-ketotic hypoglycemia (yippee, one more thing on her plate) and she is a super picky eater. If we do go on it, it would have to be with the okay of her gastroenterologist. Thanks Jenn