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How many meds?

Mon, 03/13/2006 - 14:32
My son (21 months) has been on Tegretol, Dilantin and Depakote and is now just taking Depakote, as the Tegretol did not control seizures and gave him bad side effects. The Dilantin seemed to control seizures, but his doc did not want him on it long term. He has grand-mal seizures, but mostly only when he is sick. Otherwise he has partial seizures (we think, we haven't seen the neruo yet). We finally got him up to a good level on the Depakote and then took him off the tegretol. He just got over the flu with a 105 fever, and didn't have any major seizures! But yesterday he had quite a few partial seizures and today he has had a lot of the absence seizures and seems to be in his own world a lot-very tired and low energy. I know that Depakote is used to treat generalized seizures, but should it also control the partials? I just want to know if we should consider another drug to help control the other seizures, should we not worry too much about it, are there other meds that would work to control both types, etc. Any advise for an overly worried mama?

Comments

Re: How many meds?

Submitted by Missyat on Mon, 2006-03-13 - 18:39
My son started to seize at 3.5 years of age. He is currently on med #13. My son has myoclonic astatic epilepsy, a rare form of epilepsy and it is hard to control. All of his seizures are generalized and does not have (yet) any partials. Talk to the neuro as soon as you can, and discuss what meds are great for what seizure types... and remember what works for one person may not help the next...

Re: Re: How many meds?

Submitted by jolieweng on Mon, 2006-03-13 - 21:21
Thanks for the advise! I guess I will just keep journaling, as our neuro is out of state and we don't see him until mid-May. From your experience, would you say that if a person has more than one type of seizure that they might need several meds to control each type? That seems like an awful lot of meds to give to such a little system! Thanks again!

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