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Carbatrol & Lamictal
Thu, 08/10/2006 - 15:23Topic: Parents & Caregivers
I'm looking for information for my 10 year old son. He has recently added a new medication to help control his partial seizures. He is now taking 300 mg Carbatrol and 100 mg Lamictal twice per day. He has been EXTREMELY irritable and aggressive since starting the Carbatrol. I contacted the Dr. earlier, but haven't heard back yet. Just wanted to know if there were others out there experiencing anything similar. I've been doing lots of reading about side effects and have basically found lots of conflicting information. Would appreciate any information anyone may have.
Thanks!
Comments
Re: Re: Re: Re: Carbatrol & Lamictal
Submitted by Christine1968 on Tue, 2007-08-28 - 15:31
Hi-I actually read about the fish oil in the complementary therapies area on this website. My husband did a little research on it and found that the omega-3 fats are supposed to be good for the brain. We decided to give it a try because the medications are not controlling the seizures completely. They seem to make them less severe, but don't give total control. Anyways, since he has been taking the fish oil in addition to his medications (Carbatrol-600mg/day and Lamictal-100mg/day) he has been doing a lot better. If we forget the fish oil for few days, he starts having lots of auras and sometimes seizures too. I guess we really don't know for sure that it is the fish oil that is making the difference, but we are pretty confident. You asked for a little background. Our son (age 11 now) had his first partial seizure in March of 2004 when he was 8. Shortly after that he was diagnosed with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy. After researching BRE, my husband and I decided not to medicate. The seizures started occurring more frequently and then he had a generalized (tonic-clonic, grand mal) which scared us into medicating. This was in Sept. of 2004. He started on Trileptal which seemed to work for a few months then he started having seizures again. The doctor increased his dosage as high as 1800mg/day and he started to feel dizzy and nauseous all the time. We backed him down to 1500mg/day and he felt better but was still having seizures. Next we tried Lamictal. He was on that for about a year and the same thing happened. We maxed out the dosage and he was still having seizures. Then last August we went to a new doctor who added Carbatrol to the Lamictal. Also at that time, we found out that while he does have some of the characteristics of BRE, it is unlikely that he has it. He has a difficult to control type and based on the number of seizures he has had (including auras he has had hundreds)it is unlikely he will outgrow it. We added the fish oil last September. Overall he had a much better year...the question is, is it the medication, the fish oil or a combination of the two that is helping. I guess we won't find out unless we try to take him off one or the other for a period of time and we just are not ready to do that yet as much as we hate giving him so much medication. We had a doctor appointment last week and the doctor is now recommending that we start seriously looking into whether surgery is an option. We were kind of shocked by this since he has had a better year overall, but the doctor said, the more seizures he has, the more efficient his brain will get at having them. Surgery (if it is a viable option) would be his best chance at becoming seizure free. We are in the process of looking into the surgery right now. Sorry for rambling. So, what is your son's story? Christine
Re: Re: Re: Carbatrol & Lamictal
Submitted by Doozie on Mon, 2007-08-27 - 04:55
Hi Christine, I am very interested in learning more about what I can do to help my son. I too have a 10 year old with E. He is taking 300M of lamictal. You mentioned fish oil in your post. Please tell me more about that. Is the fish oil to prevent seizures? My son has had two break-through T.C. seizures this week after five seizure free months. He is sleeping peacefully next to my husband right now. I am wide awake with worry. I hope your son is doing better. How long has he had E?