Just diagnosed - medication question

[bernie40]

Hi, I'm in the UK.  My 15 year old has just come out of hospital after having a 3rd tonic clonic seizure and repeated myoclonic seizures (although I should point out at this point that the useless Drs are refusing to give names to anything).

A CT scan today came back ok.  An EEG done in August was inconclusive and now they want him to have a sleep deprivation EEG.  All his tonic clonic seizures have followed a very late night and so he is plain scared of being forced not to sleep for 24 hours.

Anyway to the point (sorry), they have given him Epilim (depakote) 500mg daily.  I'm not happy about this, I have taken this drug myself for bipolar disorder and it turned me into a fat bloated zombie and I had to cut down to 250mg in the end and have it alongside something else.  

I do not want my 15 year old boy to go through what I did on this drug, am I just being bias here because of my own experiences?

Please help, I'm at my wits end.  I want to do the right thing for my son.

[bernie40]

Hi thanks for responding.  I realised I got the doseage wrong in my earlier post, he will in fact be on 500mg twice a day so a total of 1000mg.  I've spoken to our regular Dr today and she said that once all the tests have been completed they will hopefully have a better idea of which meds are best and that if I'm not happy with the epilim then I can discuss changing. Of course he may well get on with it fine.

Reading what you are going through has put things in perspective.  I don't know how I would manage if my son was having daily fits.  This is only his third fit since June so for that we are all grateful.

I'm glad you said what you did about the sleep deprivation test.  I spoke with my husband earlier and said that I wasn't going to force our son to stay awake all night but would instead keep him up as late as possible and wake him earlier.

I do hope they can control your sons seizures very soon and that your daughter doesn't have to go through everything that he has gone through.

Take care xx

[dollyn]

Hi  I am sorry for all you are going threw,but know that you are not alone.

I understand how hard it is to give your a child medicine.My son who is now 11 started out taken depakote.it has not taken away his seizures.so he has been on 7 medicines and not one of them have worked.this June he had the VNS put in and still even with changes they have made to it,he still has seizures every day.
And we just had my daughter check last week Friday  and found  that she is starting to have seizures and doctor called medicine in.and yes it is scary with all the side effects that can come from taken them.But if they don't take them they can get hurt or die.
I started talking to a councilor my self this year to try and help me deal with all the stress and other things that go with having a sick child and always worried about what will happen next and how I blame myself  for what happen or not piking up on things sooner.Or if we as parents are going the right thing's.I go threw this every day.

as for the EEG that he has coming up he can sleep that night just not like he would normally.He needs to be able to go sleep once they have him do a few things.So tired and being able to take a nap.I know it is hard for both child and parents.

good luck.I do a lot of praying for my son and others who are going threw the same thing's that my children are going threw.along with all the sick children and people in the world today.

god bless you and your family also.