Tegretol, Epilim or Keppra

Hi, I have been on Keppra at around 4000 spaced out 3 times per day since 2000 and have remained totally functional.  I work with people all day every day.  I am not sure why you've been on Tegretol, as it was superseded around 10 years ago by Trileptal (same manufacturer), which has less side effects and higher efficacy.  I take Trileptal and Keppra in combination together.  Compared to some of the absolutely awful side effects that I have experienced from other epilepsy meds (rashes, weight gain, loss of balance, etc., etc.), Keppra has been easy to handle.  Best of luck!           

I've had lots of side effects from Keppra, but as someone else has said, that doesn't mean that everyone will get them. Interestingly, I didn't seem to get the rage or grumpiness, but I got memory problems, terrible insomnia and extremely vivid and disturbing dreams, lots of stomach problems and some loss of balabce and co-ordination. I'm being changed ont o lamotrigine, which supposedly has fewer and less serious side effects, but I've got quite a lot of those as well, including joint and back pain which are getting pretty hard to tolerate, and get worse every time I'm supposed to increase the dose in the changeover period. It seems to have given me more twitches and muscle spasms, too, and nausea (not actually vomiting). Maybe my body is telling me something about these drugs...

The problem with looking at the percentages is that you don't know whether you are going to fall into the small percentage that gets some rare side effect or not. I've had some of the less common side effects of two drugs now (Keppra and lamotrigine).I'd say, Don't grit your teeth and put up with unpleasnat side efects indefinitely. I was told that I should have reported some side effects much sooner (it was about 14 weeks). They weren't life-threatening, but the doctor said that they were unlikely to go away if they hadn't by that stage.