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Which med. for 4 yr old? Topamax, Depakote or Keppra?
Wed, 09/27/2006 - 21:38Topic: Parents & Caregivers
Hello,
New here but not to seizures. Cameron my 4 1/2 yr old has been on tegratol for just over a yr now. He is tiny so the dr. has him on a light dose of tegratol. Move it up to more Teg. and Cameron was monster. Hitting, not listening, moving all the time. So we kept him at a good level and he was fine. Well in the past weeks he has had seizures again and one at his PreK class. The dr. wanted to change meds from tegratol to either Topamax, Depakote or Keppra. Hope I am spelling those right. I know each child is different but is there one that seems to work well with complex partial seizures and not getting aggressive behavior? I am leaning towards topamax as the one I go with. Depakote maybe next if Topamax is not so good then keppra 3rd choice. Is that what you would say?
Thank YOU!
Paige
(Cameron stroke at birth, right side weakness, sensory issues, speech delay (apraxia) complex partial seizures)
Comments
Re: Which med. for 4 yr old? Topamax, Depakote or Keppra?
Submitted by Paws1129 on Sun, 2007-10-07 - 15:13
Hi Paige,
My son takes Keppra and Topamax. He also has Complex Partials. Sometimes keppra can cause rage but that hasn't happened with my ds. He is doing pretty well on them. He has been taking them since he started having seizures in Feb and has only had breakthroughs when he is sick. Good luck and keep us posted.
BTW my son is 2
Take care,
Paws
Re: Re: Which med. for 4 yr old? Topamax, Depakote or Keppra?
Submitted by Baby Sam on Mon, 2007-10-08 - 22:01
We were on Topamax for approximately 5 months. It worked great for a month and a half, it actually controlled the seizures. In time, we had to increase the Topamax and it began to make his seizures worse and he began to have toxicity in his blood. We have since stopped the Topamax. I did not notice any behavior issues but he definitely had trouble gaining weight. His weight fell under the 3rd percentile.
Good luck, I really hope that you have success with whatever you decide.
Best wishes.
Re: Which med. for 4 yr old? Topamax, Depakote or Keppra?
Submitted by mommy2threenow on Sun, 2007-10-07 - 13:24
Paige - I wanted to let you know of my 2 yr old son Hayden's experiences since he has been on Tompomax, Keppra and Depakote. We started on the Keppra and for the first month he was horrible. He had alot of rage, screaming and just a bad attitute. It got alot better after the first month but whenever we tried to increase this med the attitude would come back so we would have to decrease the dose again. On the Tompomax he did very well except for the decrease in appetite. The med controlled his seizures well until they tried to increase his dose and his seizures increased along with it. We ended up stopping the Topomax. We have been on Depakote since June. He has been doing very well with this med. I have not seen that many side effects except for the sleepiness when we increase his med but it goes away within about 1 week of increasing it. While on the Depakote the dr's need to keep a good check on the liver enzymes because they can increase as a side effect of the medicine. It does take alot of time for the liver enzymes to increase (could take months-years) so this is not something you really need to worry about, just to keep a check on. I hope this helps a little in your struggle to find the right medicine. Take care, Michelle (Hayden's mom)