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Lethargy & sleepy
Tue, 12/27/2005 - 22:09Topic: Living With Epilepsy - Youth
My 16-year-old daughter has been lethargic and feeling very poorly for 7 weeks. Sleeps 15 hours per day and unable to attend high school. Doctor thinks her body has been unable to process her AEDs (meds) and they have built up in her body. Are slowly reducing daily meds but risk of increased seizures causing anxiety for my daughter. Anyone with similar issues?
Comments
Re: Re: Lethargy & sleepy
Submitted by bvbuchanan on Fri, 2006-02-03 - 10:32
My daughter's doctor at Mayo Clinic thought she was becoming toxic from her meds so we backed off a bit on the Lamictal but left the Felbatol levels alone. That seemed to do the trick (from 475 mg to 400 mg).
You might consider your son's mood changes to signify depression. My daughter became suicidally depressed when she was taking Zonegram several years ago. Her doctor at that time dismissed the depression as not related to Zonegram but he was mistaken. Had he chosen to check the literature on Zonegram, depression is a fairly common side effect. That was the main reason we switched doctors and now do to Mayo Clinic.
Barbi
Re: Re: Lethargy & sleepy
Submitted by tammy618 on Sat, 2006-02-04 - 00:34
Hi Lillin
I am dealing with the same problem except my daughter is only 7, and has been on Depakote for 3 years. She had a couple grand mal siezures at age 3 and 4 , and on Depakote ever since. 750MG a day. Now that she is in a full day at school (first grade), she has had agressive behavioral problems. My daughter is a sweet and very loving child. Every other week I get referrals from her teacher for aggressive or bad behavior. Such as shoving or hitting boys who call her names, lying to teachers and making up stories, not liking school, and sleeping in class. Just doing homework is a long drawn out chore and she makes the same mistakes over and over. Homework even makes her tired. She just cant control her emotions. When boys tease her, she lets them have it. She is hehind all her classmates in every subject. Her doctor says the medication has nothing to do with sleeping in class. (Its my fault, she needs to go to bed earlier.) Now I see that it all (CAN) be her medication. She is only 7 now. How much worse will it get? I hate to find out.
Tammy
Re: Lethargy & sleepy
Submitted by boychildsMom on Mon, 2006-01-02 - 22:12
My son, 16 in march just had a grand mal seizure and he sleeps all day and than with his 3rd dose of the day he stays awake until 4 am! Driving me crazy, I have to wake him up at 6 am to take his first pill of the day, than 3pm and than 11. I can't get him awake enough to function, he's on 1500 mg of depakote. What is your daughter on? Has she changed also in her attitude? My son is mean, seems very short tempered and it's not like him. I know the doc's will have to play around with his meds too, no way will he be able to do school like this. That scares meas I am so nervous with all this already. It's winter break right now butwhathappens nextweek? Feeling for you, Lilian