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Med changes for my son aren't working
Sun, 03/10/2019 - 13:52Topic: Medication Issues
Hi - My 14yr old son has been having seizures recently. The neurologist changed his meds as he was having them more regularly. Now he is having several each day. He was on keppra, lamictal, onfi and now added depakote. He is more tired and has a rash. His seizures are simple and complex as well as absence seizures. He has had a few grand mal seizures previously and we added onfi to try and control them which has seemed to work. Is there anyone that has these types of seizures and has been successful with a med or combination of meds? Thanks in advance, any input is appreciated.
Comments
Hi - Thanks for your reply.
Submitted by wvuwvu on Tue, 2019-03-12 - 11:26
Hi - Thanks for your reply. The rash looks like eczema and we meet with the neurologist next week. He has had seizures since 8 months old but they were under control till he was 11 then he started having breakthroughs. He then had a grand mal which we have tried the other medicines and luckily he has only had a few of them. We are still seing break throughs now. Our neurologist is also a epileptologist. What questions should we be asking? We are going off the depakote and he suggested going to epidiolex.
Things to ask if you don’t
Submitted by Amy Jo on Wed, 2019-03-13 - 04:49
Things to ask if you don’t already know - what’s syndrome or type of epilepsy does your son have (is genetic testing helpful in his case as it’s changed a lot since he was born), what are the common issues patients face, what is the expected prognosis, how can things change around puberty, etc. Your initial post doesn’t make clear how much you know about his epilepsy. He’s at an age where he’ll need to learn how to drive the relationship with the doc so maybe finding out his questions is also important.
That's a lot of medications..
Submitted by Amy Jo on Mon, 2019-03-11 - 15:18
That's a lot of medications... Has the rash been checked (some rashes are super serious complications so call the neurologist's office asap)? Has your son had epilepsy a long time and things are only now getting worse? Puberty/hormones can change things for good or bad. If you've been working with a regular neurologist for a while, it's a good time to consider consulting an epileptologist. If he's working with an epileptologist, it's really time to ask a lot more questions and how to get some idea of what's going on.