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Zarontin side effects in my 4yr old
Thu, 07/16/2009 - 19:39My 4yr old was put on Ethosuximide back in December for Absence seizures and since then he has not be the same child. He is extremely aggressive, to the point he is choking people, kicking, hitting and hurting kids in his class at his daycare. He is also very easily set off into a tantrum that is like no other, screaming and yelling at anyone and anything he sees. The doctor told us back in April that it would get better in time and that the side effects of this drug are far less than the side effects of others, but what am I supposed to do when his daycare tells me he can't come back because of his medication cause he hurt someone? I am taking him to the doctor next week to talk to him and see if I should take him to see a pediatric neurologist. There has to be something we can do to contol the seizures without this craziness. He just isn't the same 4 yr old I had before this all started. Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so, have any suggestions for me or for me to suggest to my doctor? I would stop the medication all together, but I don't want him having seizures.
Comments
Re: Zarontin side effects in my 4yr old
Submitted by dcondry on Thu, 2010-01-28 - 02:30
Re: Zarontin side effects in my 4yr old
Submitted by Bri_Christine on Sun, 2009-07-19 - 10:46
Dear Becca,
I am speaking entirely from an experience that happened almost exactly a month ago. My boyfriend has epilepsy. He's 18 & has been epileptic for 3 years now. He has tonic clonic & absense seizures & it's been noticed that his tonic clonic seizures are proceeded by an about 15 second absense seizure. He's been on a number of different medications where some stopped the tonic clonics for a five month period, where he would have just one, and then go another five months without a seizure, or they would help stop the absense seizures, but increase the tonic clonics. Since he & I have began dating in November, he has been on Keppra, Depakote, Topamax, Zorantin & Depakote, & now Vimpat & Depakote. Before we met, he had been on Lamictal and Keppra, individually. We began dating while he was on Keppra.
A month ago, his epiletologist suggested we take a aggressive stance & stick him on the "grandfather" of absense seizure medication, seeing as his tonic clonics are preceeded by an absense seizure. So we went with it, after all, he is the expert. Not even a week after Ryan started the medication, he began having what we thought were auras that made him feel like he was in Alice in Wonderland, & what seemed to be partial seizures, which he never had. This went on two days, of almost nonstop "auras & partial seizures" the doctors said to only give him Ativan to sedate him if he had any tonic clonics. These auras were freaking him out, everything in the room was changing, it was like a high he said. This began happening on a Satuday night & so Monday evening, it became apparent this was not going to stop, so off to the hospital he went. They hooked him up to an EEG & 24/7 Video Monitor & sedated him the first night. I went to visit & his mom told me that the doctors said he was having nonepileptic seizures. These weren't auras or parital seizures, but they were essentially just fake seizures that his brain thought he was having. There was no seizure activity on the EEG, when he was having these attacks. I told her about a prevous phone call between he & I from Monday, he had called me to tell me he had two grand mals, but sounded completely fine, there was no way. [ After doing some reasearch on what non epileptic seizures were, I found that a big difference in epileptic & non epileptic seizures (formally called puesdoseizures) was the time it took to recover. The articles I read, all said the same thing. A person could have a 1 hour grand mal & wake up immediately afterwards & that would be a nonepileptic seizure. An epileptic seizure would take hours & hours of recover time, where as a nonepileptic seizure takes absouletly no time at all.]
The next day, strange behaviors became apparent. Ryan is a really happy kid. He's got a loving family, great friends, etc. He became suicidal, which isn't him at all. He became extremely agressive, he just wanted to hit any and everything. He became extremelely anxious, he was paranoid everyone was lying to him. & the weirdest of them all, was he kept having breaks from reality where he began to believe that there was an alternate universe and that things were not like they seemed, he lated told me it was like the Matrix, where everyone's lying. None of these behaviors were him at all, so his mom did some reasearch & found that these were rare side effects of Zorantin, which the doctor would not believe because he had never had a case like this. Ryan was terrified of his own head, the thoughts weren't his!
So the doctor gave him a medication called Resptial to combat the side effects of the Zorantin instead of just taking him off of it. Long story short, Respital lowers the seizure threshold & causes more seizures. Along with a few other nasty side effects, such a severe cramping, extreme amounts of mucous, etc.
Be your own advocate, tell those doctors what you see is going on & I think you should get him off of it. They told my boyfriend's parents the same thing, that these effects would go away, but they made him pyscotic, you can't just sit and wait for those to go away.
I hope it gets better & they figure this out for your son, I think you should find something new to help his seizures, don't kep him on this much longer. But that's just my opinion from a terrible experience.
Much love & hope
Bri
Dear Becca,
I am speaking entirely from an experience that happened almost exactly a month ago. My boyfriend has epilepsy. He's 18 & has been epileptic for 3 years now. He has tonic clonic & absense seizures & it's been noticed that his tonic clonic seizures are proceeded by an about 15 second absense seizure. He's been on a number of different medications where some stopped the tonic clonics for a five month period, where he would have just one, and then go another five months without a seizure, or they would help stop the absense seizures, but increase the tonic clonics. Since he & I have began dating in November, he has been on Keppra, Depakote, Topamax, Zorantin & Depakote, & now Vimpat & Depakote. Before we met, he had been on Lamictal and Keppra, individually. We began dating while he was on Keppra.
A month ago, his epiletologist suggested we take a aggressive stance & stick him on the "grandfather" of absense seizure medication, seeing as his tonic clonics are preceeded by an absense seizure. So we went with it, after all, he is the expert. Not even a week after Ryan started the medication, he began having what we thought were auras that made him feel like he was in Alice in Wonderland, & what seemed to be partial seizures, which he never had. This went on two days, of almost nonstop "auras & partial seizures" the doctors said to only give him Ativan to sedate him if he had any tonic clonics. These auras were freaking him out, everything in the room was changing, it was like a high he said. This began happening on a Satuday night & so Monday evening, it became apparent this was not going to stop, so off to the hospital he went. They hooked him up to an EEG & 24/7 Video Monitor & sedated him the first night. I went to visit & his mom told me that the doctors said he was having nonepileptic seizures. These weren't auras or parital seizures, but they were essentially just fake seizures that his brain thought he was having. There was no seizure activity on the EEG, when he was having these attacks. I told her about a prevous phone call between he & I from Monday, he had called me to tell me he had two grand mals, but sounded completely fine, there was no way. [ After doing some reasearch on what non epileptic seizures were, I found that a big difference in epileptic & non epileptic seizures (formally called puesdoseizures) was the time it took to recover. The articles I read, all said the same thing. A person could have a 1 hour grand mal & wake up immediately afterwards & that would be a nonepileptic seizure. An epileptic seizure would take hours & hours of recover time, where as a nonepileptic seizure takes absouletly no time at all.]
The next day, strange behaviors became apparent. Ryan is a really happy kid. He's got a loving family, great friends, etc. He became suicidal, which isn't him at all. He became extremely agressive, he just wanted to hit any and everything. He became extremelely anxious, he was paranoid everyone was lying to him. & the weirdest of them all, was he kept having breaks from reality where he began to believe that there was an alternate universe and that things were not like they seemed, he lated told me it was like the Matrix, where everyone's lying. None of these behaviors were him at all, so his mom did some reasearch & found that these were rare side effects of Zorantin, which the doctor would not believe because he had never had a case like this. Ryan was terrified of his own head, the thoughts weren't his!
So the doctor gave him a medication called Resptial to combat the side effects of the Zorantin instead of just taking him off of it. Long story short, Respital lowers the seizure threshold & causes more seizures. Along with a few other nasty side effects, such a severe cramping, extreme amounts of mucous, etc.
Be your own advocate, tell those doctors what you see is going on & I think you should get him off of it. They told my boyfriend's parents the same thing, that these effects would go away, but they made him pyscotic, you can't just sit and wait for those to go away.
I hope it gets better & they figure this out for your son, I think you should find something new to help his seizures, don't kep him on this much longer. But that's just my opinion from a terrible experience.
Much love & hope
Bri
Re: Zarontin side effects in my 4yr old
Submitted by cridgaway on Sun, 2009-07-19 - 01:33
My daughter just started Zarotinin on Tuesday. We have not noticed agression, but have noticed grogginess and severe stomach pain and diarrhea. I got on here to see if anyone gave additional medications to their children for the side effects. I figured pepto would be okay but don't want to do it unless I know it's okay...can't call neuro until Monday...
I would definitely report your sons agression to the doctor. That is not a side effect that can be treated. AND with these medications from what I have read, depression can be caused. In a 4 year old I would imagine that aggression would be a sign that something is amiss...
Have you had an eeg to confirm his seizures? I noticed that you mentioned taking him to a pedi neuro which implies that you haven't seen one yet. Our pediatrician immediately sent us to the neuro and would not medicate Cadence herself. We are close to Houston so thankfully have the luxury of going to Texas Children's Hospital. So far, they have done a CT scan, bloodwork, and we have an MRI scheduled in August. I am supposed to call the neuro after 2 weeks of meds after I have her hyperventilate to induce a seizure. If she has one within 3 minutes of hyperventilating, we raise the dosage. If not, we'll schedule an eeg in about 6 months.
All the research I have done says you don't necessarily have to medicate children with absence seizures. I didn't want to medicate Cadence after reading the side effects, but the neuro recommended we do because she has already started school. She is 6 and will start first grade this year. They said she is having 100 or more per day and even in her sleep. The neuro was concerned that if we didn't medicate her, she would fall behind in school because of the amount of seizures she is having. Today (5 days after meds started) was the first day that we didn't actually witness a seizure all day.
This entire process has been a headache. My husband and I stare at her constantly and now have her sleeping with us because we're afraid they could get worse and purchased bed rails for her bed yet. I hate seeing her be so tired and have stomach aches all the time and all around just not herself. It's very frustrating and I feel your pain. Feel free to email me if you need an ear. cridgaway@yahoo.com I wish you the best of luck with your son.
Christy
My daughter just started Zarotinin on Tuesday. We have not noticed agression, but have noticed grogginess and severe stomach pain and diarrhea. I got on here to see if anyone gave additional medications to their children for the side effects. I figured pepto would be okay but don't want to do it unless I know it's okay...can't call neuro until Monday...
I would definitely report your sons agression to the doctor. That is not a side effect that can be treated. AND with these medications from what I have read, depression can be caused. In a 4 year old I would imagine that aggression would be a sign that something is amiss...
Have you had an eeg to confirm his seizures? I noticed that you mentioned taking him to a pedi neuro which implies that you haven't seen one yet. Our pediatrician immediately sent us to the neuro and would not medicate Cadence herself. We are close to Houston so thankfully have the luxury of going to Texas Children's Hospital. So far, they have done a CT scan, bloodwork, and we have an MRI scheduled in August. I am supposed to call the neuro after 2 weeks of meds after I have her hyperventilate to induce a seizure. If she has one within 3 minutes of hyperventilating, we raise the dosage. If not, we'll schedule an eeg in about 6 months.
All the research I have done says you don't necessarily have to medicate children with absence seizures. I didn't want to medicate Cadence after reading the side effects, but the neuro recommended we do because she has already started school. She is 6 and will start first grade this year. They said she is having 100 or more per day and even in her sleep. The neuro was concerned that if we didn't medicate her, she would fall behind in school because of the amount of seizures she is having. Today (5 days after meds started) was the first day that we didn't actually witness a seizure all day.
This entire process has been a headache. My husband and I stare at her constantly and now have her sleeping with us because we're afraid they could get worse and purchased bed rails for her bed yet. I hate seeing her be so tired and have stomach aches all the time and all around just not herself. It's very frustrating and I feel your pain. Feel free to email me if you need an ear. cridgaway@yahoo.com I wish you the best of luck with your son.
Christy