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

[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)