Implants v. medication

First of all you said he is on trileptal. It can cause low sodium and will cause seizures. He had to get blood work every few weeks to make sure he the sodium dont get too low. Also if it gets low give him gatorade to help. Make sure his diet is changed and vitamins. Seizures can occur from low magnesium, calcium, vit d, b complex , low sodium and low blood sugar level. lisa http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/EpilepsyApproach/

Bettye, I know don't know the actual truth about the cause(s) of your son's seizures, because I don't jump to conclusions, nor have an automatic assumption switch in the 'on' position of my mind. I try to look at both sides of the coin. I do want to say though that it is possible that the cause of your son's seizures could be because of his past drug/alcohol abuse. However, with another portion of your description, I'd like to say that there is something else that could be possible a possible cause. If, your son spent a good portion of his time studying and in training in order to receive his master's degree last year, then he could be possible that he may have not had enough sleep. Sleep deprivation is a common cause for people to have seizures. Just as a 'give it a try' suggestion for you to bring to your son's attention, that maybe he can do some experimenting for a few weeks of getting more sleep to see it can help lower his frequency of seizures, or even bring those seizures to a complete halt. Give it a try. As for the medication, trileptal, which you said he is currently taking, if he does not have any improvement at getting more sleep, then your son should bring it to his doctor's attention and the doctor may slowly increase the medication dosage in order to increase the amount that is in his blood level. There are many different anti-epileptic medications available, but just to let you know ahead of time, different medications work for different types of seizures. One of the most critical necessities in dealing with seizures is making sure that the doctor comes up with a correct diagnosis for whatever seizures your son could be having. With all of the many anti-epileptic medications, once the correct diagnosis has been determined it will narrow down the choices of medications to just the most commonly effective for certain type of seizure. Another suggestion for you to share with your son, have him contact his doctor, or whoever picks up the phone when you call the doctor's number, and see if they might know of any epilepsy foundations or local epilepsy support groups that might be in his vicinity. This can be rather helpful for your son, you and other people in the family, to learn more about epilepsy in itself, as well as living well with epilepsy. Doing this can be very helpful at getting people to come out of hiding/out of the shadows. Wish you and the rest of the family the best of luck. Bruce (link guy)

Good for you to keep raising the questions, and hope your son does too. Encourage him to share his goals and how he feels about what works and what doesn't.. unfortunately, some medical professionals don't always grasp how even 1 seizure every 2 or 3 months can affect people - and it's up to us to make sure they know! Encourage him to ask for help too - someone to talk to about the emotional and social part. Has he had a chance to look at the Information section on epilepsy.com? Look at the section on 'Talking to your doctor and health care team, as well as the treatment section.. may help him think through some questions before his next visit. Good luck to you all, Epilepsy.com Resource Specialist