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Change of medication
Sat, 01/16/2016 - 18:40My son, 18, was diagnosed three years ago. He started on 500 mg of Keppra and over time iincreased his dosage to 3000 mg. He had a med. increase with every seizure. Five neurologist told us that he did not need an extended EEG, but I pushed for one, and we found out he is experiencing spikes day and night. He only has tonice clonic seizures every four months, right before bed. The new neuro told us Keppra is not working for him, hence the continuation of the seizures despite the dosage increase. In the hospital during the EEG, His Keppra dosage was lowered from 3000 mg to 2000 mg with 1500 mg of Depakote added. He is to continue to reduce Keppra by 250 mg every two weeks until he is weaned off. The problem is he says he feels weird. He has never had an side effects from Keppra. I am not sure if this is because we are starting a new drug or if this is the normal feeling of being weaned off Keppra. Has anyone had any experience with these medications?
Any and all medications have
Submitted by just_joe on Mon, 2016-01-18 - 11:09
Any and all medications have side effects. What you need to understand is that weaning off one med and onto another takes time unless it is done in a hospital and watched closely. I know I have had many changes. What most people do not think about is the therapeutic levels that are built up in the body. If a person stops taking the medication it takes 4-6 weeks for all of the medication to get out of his system. If he is being weaned off one and onto another then it does feel weird or nothing changes. Each person is different. What the neurologist is trying to do is keep the therapeutic levels about the same while the change takes place. It isn't easy but it can be done. If you like this neurologist then by all means keep a good relationship with him. Many questions can be answered in a phone call. I had questions and called Doc. If he wasn't available I left a message. His assistant listened to it and I either got Doc answering it of she had gotten the answer from him. Phone calls are less expensive then visits. Keppra is becoming the go to medication for seizure control. It does have side effects as do all medications. generally side effects go away in 2-4 weeks as the body gets used to the medication. Side effects do happen to 5-8% of the people taking it. If you see posts about it not working or it doing this or that understand that you will see very few posts from the 92-95% of the people who have no problems. I also would suggest you get the My Epilepsy Diary (found on this site). Watch the video and use it. Give his neurologist permission to bring it up and he can see everything in it. By doing that the neurologist may come up with medications and dosages as well as possible procedures that can help control his seizures. I hope this helps Joe