Medication Update

[hiddenmuse]

I'm on what seems to be my 50th different seizure medication in as many months - Keppra, while keeping me seizure-free, had a nasty side effect. One that made the hair loss and weight gain from Depakote almost seem tolerable.


How can I put this, without freaking people out? ... Hmmm ... I'll just come out and say it: Keppra made me suicidally depressed. I NEVER attempted. I just had this incredible, overwhelming depression - a feeling of guilt over nothing at all, coupled with the sense that I should be in Hell.

Then, yesterday, it happened again. I was at the top floor of a department store, looking out the window and admiring the view of downtown. The next thought that came into my head was "what if I jumped from this ledge?" It scared the hell out of me, to go from a perfectly rational, decent thought ... to a suicidal thought - something totally irrational and insane. It was the medication thinking for me, which freaked me out. I got away from the window and broke down, because I was scared over what had happened.

Hopefully, this will be ending very soon, as I am being weaned off the Keppra - and going onto Lamictal. Granted, I'll be spending the first week on 3 different seizure meds, and the schedule for going on Lamictal is utterly screwy (only to keep patients from developing a rare, but potentially fatal rash) ... but anything is better than Keppra Hell.

Comments

[ex-sarcasti.livejournal.com]

I have to say that i was a hell of a lot more depressed on Tegretol then on Keppra... (Keppra is treating me just fine)...

On Tegretol I also ended up on prozac (due to those horrible thoughts of worthlessness and the dreams of my funeral...etc...you can understand this im sure)

Glad to be off the stuff..just for the record...i started taking Keppra to have a baby...so maybe its hormones associated with being a mom thats stopping any depression? who the hell knows anyway...

Good luck! I have had those rational thoughts that lead to irrational ones...and at least I was rational enough (as you seem to be) to realize that they are freaky effects of drugs rather than actual feelings...

...Kar

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how the drugs seem to affect everyone so differently. You became terribly depressed on Tegretol, and it seemed to keep my depression from becoming worse than it was - and Keppra was the exact opposite for both of us!

Ah well - I know that eventually, I'll stumble upon a drug combination that actually works for me. Even if it takes a lot of trial and error in the meantime.

[ex-sarcasti.livejournal.com]

its always about trial and error unfortunately
and its annoying as hell

luckily for me right now things are relatively smooth...so i cant bitch much about it ;)

during that time i was a mess tho...

at least we have those options tho right? its sooo much better than the alternative (or being alive a few hundred years ago...confined to the leper communities eh?)

...kar

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

So true ... at least a century ago, we would've been in the insane asylums - or worse, considered witches and burned at the stake/drowned as such.

Thankfully, medicine has made considerable progress in the past century!

[ex-sarcasti.livejournal.com]

yes i would prefer thinking about my funeral rather than drowning or burning to get there ;)

take it easy and just try to remain off of prozac...that sucks (or it did for me)