 |
|
|
Place Your Advertisement Here
All ad revenues support the mission
of the Epilepsy Therapy Project
Seizure Medicines
Treatments are available that can successfully prevent seizures for most people with epilepsy. The first treatment is almost always one of the many seizure medicines that are now available. Each medicine tends to work better for certain kinds of seizures than for others. If one treatment fails, another may be more successful. This section provides in-depth information on epilepsy medications, investigational drugs and insurance issues.
General Information
There is no known cure for epilepsy. But medications can control seizures in most people. These medicines do not actually "fix" the problems that cause seizures. Instead, they work by stopping the seizures from occurring. Before suggesting treatment with a seizure medicine (also called an antiepileptic drug or AED), your doctor usually has made a diagnosis of epilepsy. It is important to openly discuss with your doctor the pros and cons of the different medicines that are available to treat your kind of epilepsy.
Detailed Seizure Medicine Information
The following drugs are currently approved and marketed for certain kinds of epilepsy in certain countries.
Click on the drug name for detailed information on each medicine.
 |
Treatment Guidelines
Seizure medicines are developed to treat different types of seizures. After a drug has been on the market for a while and has been used in larger numbers of people, we learn more about these drugs. Yet, it is often hard to know which drugs may be best for different types of epilepsy and how they compare to one another. This section offers links to guidelines that have been developed on the use of some of the seizure medicines and other therapies to treat epilepsy.
International AED Name Database
Many medicines are known by different names, depending on the country and company involved. Additionally, a drug may be known by both a generic name and a brand name. The International AED Name Database is a tool to help you find the names of seizure medicines in different countries. Epilepsy.com provides this database as a resource for your use. It has been compiled over the years and as new pharmaceuticals are introduced into our countries, the data may become outdated. This database is considered an ongoing project and every attempt will be made to ensure that the data is current and correct. However, since this database may contain inaccuracies, outdated information and omissions, this information should not be used to make treatment decisions without independent confirmation from an official resource.
Topic Editor: Steven C. Schachter, MD and Patricia O. Shafer, RN, MN.
Last Reviewed: 9/20/08