Hello Elizabeth, Happy Holidays!I can understand a little bit about your Dilantin problems.It does keep your appitite down but the other medications that is taken with it helps to increase your appitite.I have been taken Dilantin now for almost 27yrs. I was keeping grand-mal seizures constantly.I would see the doctors and change medicine's one right after the other.I was taking many diffrent kinds and they never seemed to work with the dilantin. I am taking keppra now I have been taking it now for almost 3yrs.My seizures were getting worse,I was loosing most of my memory, and I was becoming a vegetable.But since I have been on keppra the seizures have improved wonderfully! My memory is improving each blessing day!I am still not married but I have a 23yearold son that God blessed me with!I am very glad that he does not have epilepsy. Dilantin does help you to stay younger looking but it is the seizures that keeps you disgusted, and depressed, and that makes you begin to think terrible things about yourself. I am now taking Dilantin 500mg.and Keppra 1500mg.a day and I'm feeling much more positive about my self.Because I realized that condeming myself does not help me or anyone who is around at all, it just brings you down even more.I look at it this way, if God,intends for their to be a man in my life besides my son then their will be one. Put yourself in God's hands he is always here for us each and every day. Have faith in God! You are a beautiful young woman never give in to your disappointments. Praying to God lets you see new improvements each day!!!! God bless you.Goodbye for now. Diana.

Elizabeth, Different seizures respond to different kinds of medication. This is also true for people. Different people respond to different kinds of medication. There are a lot of people who can have their seizures controlled by just being on one medication. But there are some who need to have two medications, as well as a few more to respond to three different kinds of medication. But what can be tedious and time-consuming for some people, is having to go through the trial and error period, to find out what specific medication is going to be the best control for their seizures. I have been on lamictal myself ever since September 1997. And between October 1997 until November 2001, I was also taken Dilantin at the same time. The bad result with this, was that I had a huge increase in frequency and strength of my complex partial seizures. I ended up going through my second video EEG and the head neurologist on that team found out that one of the two medications was knocking down the potency of the other medication. That neurologist quickly stop me from taking any more Dilantin, and switched me over to a different medication called divalproex. Eventually after 20 months later the complex partial seizures completely stopped because they were fully controlled. But still basically no change whatsoever with the simple partial seizures, up until I started working on a different epilepsy treatment plan, which by the way has to do primarily with eating more natural foods as well with a few other steps, ever since January of this year. The results so far with that is that might simple partial seizures have not only lower down in frequency but also in strength. Another positive note with that is that my bad cholesterol has also lowered down quite nicely. Bruce