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Keppra- the best option?

Fri, 09/30/2016 - 18:07
Hi- I'm 34 and had my first grand mal seizure last January. After an EEG determined I had epilepsy, I started taking 1000mg of keppra. I was super emotional and depressed at first and my doctor had me start taking vitamin b6 which helped. Then this past august I had another smaller seizure and he upped the Keppra to 1500mg. In the last 6 weeks I have felt exhausted beyond belief, feel like I rarely laugh or smile (where I used to be a very fun happy person) and yesterday was my birthday and I cried all day. I'm married with two kids and I hate feeling this way. Do you think the depression is related to keppra? Do you think lamicdal is a better option ? I don't want to feel so emotional and sad.

Comments

Well, there are a lot of

Submitted by shayde1992 on Fri, 2016-09-30 - 21:07
Well, there are a lot of positives to keppra (which I take). 1) It's the newest drug with least amount of side effects precentage-wise. It's also able be used with other medications.Older drugs often have more common side effects

You may be one of the 5-8% of

Submitted by just_joe on Sat, 2016-10-01 - 10:50
You may be one of the 5-8% of the people who get a side effect. Any and all medications have them. That also includes over the counter meds. Foe many neurologists keppra has become the go to seizure control.I have been on keppra for close to 15 years. It reduced the number of seizures I was having. When we coupled it with vimpat those seizures were reduced again and the time in them was also reduced. Seizures that used to last 5-8 minutes are now 2-8 seconds. The postictal time used to be 15-45 minutes is now a couple of seconds.At times you will get the side effects come back and I have had that happen and it took a little longer when the dosage was raised. The problem is getting the therapeutic levels built yo in your body. Now are you taking them as prescribed?? If it says 2 times a day 12 hours apart? If not the therapeutic levels could be off which can cause breakthrough seizures which can bring you down some.Discuss this is with a call to your neurologist

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