Seizure Medication

How is he doing on the pheno? Any more seizures? The first priority is seizure control. I hope this drug is working for him. My son has been on pheno since he was 1 yo. They ALL cause side effects, mostly cognitive and unfortunately, pheno's main problem is that. It's been the only drug that has controlled my son. Good news is that when he comes off of it there is a tremendous cognitive gain. It's dulls them. Some children get very sleepy with it and for some it makes them more hyper. My son gets more hyper. I've had no problems with his growth. Unfortunately, there is no magic pill with no side effects right now. If he fails pheno too, you should look into the ketogenic diet. There's information at this site and you can google it too. God's speed that he grows out of it.

This is from personal experience. I'm 35 yrs. old, but I remember being on pheno. very well, even though I was very young, because of the side effects. I was on pheno. when I was about 5 yrs. old until I was about 7-8. I stuttered so bad, I could hardly say hello on the telephone. There were certain words I couldn't say at all. I was transferred to a different school and put into learning disabled classes for half a day. The school put me in speech therapy for my stuttering. My parents tried to tell them the stuttering was because of my medication, but they wouldn't listen. The school also put me in balance classes once a week, I'd do things like walk a short balance beam with an eraser on my head. As soon as I was taken off pheno. my stuttering went away. In third grade I was transferred back to my elementary school in my district. I still had a few learning problems, but after that, it may have been more psychological. I do know now, I don't have any problems with comprehension and if I went back to school I would probably do well in any subject. Of course there's some things I'm better at than others, and some things I like better than others, but everyone's like that. Pheno. is a barbituate and addictive, so it scares me for that reason also. I haven't been on any other anti convulsant that's a barbituate and I don't think any of the new ones are either, but you should do your own research first, before your nephew starts a new medication. From what my neuro told me, if depakote is mixed with the wrong med. it can be potentially fatal. I'm taking lamictal. At one time, I thought I wanted to be totally weaned off of lamictal and put on depakote. He told me I couldn't mix the two though, so he'd probably need to add another med while weaning me off of lamictal. But the problem I had with lamictal was my old neuro had me on double the limit, so I could hardly walk straight or see straight because of it. I didn't know that, until I started doing my own research. I'm doing fine on lamictal now, because I'm on a safe therapuetic level.I hope all of this makes sense and I hope it helps.HeatherTulsa, OK