kev_alaska
Petty Officer 2nd Class
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2002
- Messages
- 169
Re: Depakote?? Epilepsy
Kinda late coming in on this discussion. I have a 16 year old daughter who contracted a pretty rare form of encephalytis a couple years ago that left her with some long term effects. One of which was that while in the hospital she suffered a few seizures. After getting out of the hospital she had seizures in decreasing frequency up to the point that she now has one about every 8-10 months. <br /><br />We went through every antiseizure med available in the past couple years (or so it seemed to us)and finally settled on Topomax. It had the least number of side effects for her, and that was our reference point. Different meds show up differently in each person. We have successfully weaned her off of them alltogether as of today. Her neurologist agreed with us that as long as her rate of seizure reoccurance kept at this frequency, the seizure danger was less than the medication effects. We still keep emergency supplies of Diastat on hand, but are not planning on resuming medication unless a change in her condition dictates it. <br /><br />This is certainly not a rant about medications. Many people are fully functional and would be in a world of hurt without it. My daughter was one of the ones who was totally non-functional on medication. No amount of theraputic level adjustment changed it at all. The only change came when we stopped altogether. One thing to note was that for the last couple years, her seizure rate never was affected by the medication level. She had the same seizures on medication that she has had off of it...<br /><br />Sorry to go on for so long. This is a very tough situation for your relative. The site that Toad gave you is a lot of help. No two situations are the same.
Kinda late coming in on this discussion. I have a 16 year old daughter who contracted a pretty rare form of encephalytis a couple years ago that left her with some long term effects. One of which was that while in the hospital she suffered a few seizures. After getting out of the hospital she had seizures in decreasing frequency up to the point that she now has one about every 8-10 months. <br /><br />We went through every antiseizure med available in the past couple years (or so it seemed to us)and finally settled on Topomax. It had the least number of side effects for her, and that was our reference point. Different meds show up differently in each person. We have successfully weaned her off of them alltogether as of today. Her neurologist agreed with us that as long as her rate of seizure reoccurance kept at this frequency, the seizure danger was less than the medication effects. We still keep emergency supplies of Diastat on hand, but are not planning on resuming medication unless a change in her condition dictates it. <br /><br />This is certainly not a rant about medications. Many people are fully functional and would be in a world of hurt without it. My daughter was one of the ones who was totally non-functional on medication. No amount of theraputic level adjustment changed it at all. The only change came when we stopped altogether. One thing to note was that for the last couple years, her seizure rate never was affected by the medication level. She had the same seizures on medication that she has had off of it...<br /><br />Sorry to go on for so long. This is a very tough situation for your relative. The site that Toad gave you is a lot of help. No two situations are the same.