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My 7 month old was just diagnosed

Sun, 06/14/2015 - 17:51
My 7 month old daughter was just diagnosed with epilepsy.  On Monday night (6/8) we took our baby to the ER because she was "frozen" in one position, pupils dilated and wasn't responding to us.  They transported us to our local children's hospital. While at Children's Mercy Hospital she suffered another seizure that lasted 15 minutes.  They did a CT, chest xray, lumbar puncture, blood and urine work, a MRI and EEG.  All tests came back normal except for the EEG.  The neurologist said they found some abnormalities in the EEG on the right side of her brain and gave us the diagnosis of Epilepsy.  We were prescribed Trileptal and Diazepam and were released to go home.  Once we left the hospital (6/11) we went to the pharmacy and filled the prescriptions.  We started the Trileptal at 8:30 pm on 6/11 and by the evening of 6/13 we decided to stop the drug.  It made her have seizures and very sad (She had not had a seizure since the once at the hospital at 12:45 am on 6/9).  Today (6/14) between the hours of 8 am and 2pm she has suffered from 8 seizures.  Ranging from 10 seconds to almost 2 minutes.   I called the neurologist and she put her on Keppra.   We took her off the Trileptal because we thought it was causing her more trouble,  but we're not positive now that we made the correct decision. Any advice or suggestions would be very helpful.  We also don't understand why she hadn't had an episode since Tuesday morning until we gave her the medication.  Thoughts?

Comments

I am sorry you have had this

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2015-06-16 - 17:34
I am sorry you have had this problemTo start with a medication designed to treat one thing can also cause them in another person. In simple words a medication deisgened to stop seizures in one person can cause them in another. I have used both medications you posted and they both worked at stopping my seizures. I still take the keppra or it's generic.Keppra is becomming the go to medication for most people. It does work but it does take a period of time as do all seizure medications to get to the theraputic levels the doctors want the patient on. It generally takes 4-6 weeks for the body to get used to the medication. It then takes a few more weeks for the theraputic levels to get where they are needed. During that period you may see some of the side effects but they go away after the body gets used to the med.The neurologist prescribed keppra nd if your child hadn't taken it for very long then the change is fine and if the prescrption is 2 times a day those times need to be 12 hours apart. If taken at 7am and 10 pm the 3 hour difference can cause a breakthru seizure. I take mine at 8 am & pm which is generally after I have eaten breakfast and supper. As for her not having an episode???? There  are many different types of seizures and she could have had one without you knowing it. She could also go longer periods of time without a seizure.  I had been written up for day dreaming in class when in reality those day dreams were petite mal or absence seizures. Give the keppra time to work and itmight get your daughter seizure free Oh and Keppra has not only reduced the number of seizures I was having but it also shortened the time in those seizures. Joe

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