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

[kismet-evenstar.livejournal.com]

Hey love...

I am on both Keppra AND Lamictal. And while I can not say I felt terribly suicidal, the apathy that I expirence is horrible. Bleh. I just don't want to do anything anymore. For example, my mother keeps telling me to get a hair cut. However, I just keep saying I am having the surgery next month, what is the point? I know that looking better would make me feel better, but I just don't have the energy.

SO, I am on the Keppra, Lamictal, Zonegran, and Klonipin. Yay. I hope the Lamictal works out better. Let's see, ya?

xoxo.

[luvlyssa.livejournal.com]

Christ on a cookie! (I usually say christ on a cracker but I want COOOOOOOOOOOOOKIES)
*thinks hard*
You know hon, now that I think about it I ended up on my anti's after the Keppra... I hadn't realized the relationship... but now that I'm thinking about it it's there. I'm still on the anti's so there may or may not have been a link...
I'm so so so so so sorry... Ugh.... I really hate bodies and chemicals in our mind. Why doesn't your brain (and mine) work correctly?! Is it REALLY that difficult? Millions of peoples brains work just fine.
/rant

[hakuai.livejournal.com]

I often wonder about the amount of research done on medications. It almost seems as though they purposely created so that the side affects create a need for another medication. I went through a terrible experience with my daughters 1st grade teacher, the medication that was given to her for depression actually made her post-partum depression even worse to the point of committing the unthinkable...

Take care of yourself darling...

[livinginoctober.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I could handle all that med adjusting. :(

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

I've been on Zonegran through all of this (for almost two years) - even took Zonegran for almost a year by itself with no seizures ... until the doc told me it was a secondary drug. :-/

So now I'm going off Keppra and its nightmare side effects (the worsening depression was happening even though I'm on anti-depressants as it is!) - and onto Lamictal & Zonegran.

Hopefully I'll find something that works.

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

Well I think that (for me) the epilepsy and depression might be connected - because I'd read that for some epileptics, they also suffer from depression, which kind of doesn't suprise me. One problem with the brain ... why not have another problem? ;)

And sometimes, I'd love to have a brain transplant ... but I'd lose some damn good memories, which wouldn't be cool at all.

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

I let my sick-puppy humor kick in, and think of it as being all the drug experimenting I never did in college.

Only this time, it's legal ... and doctor-supervised.

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

No kidding! Especially since the FDA is being called into question over so many different drugs lately ... it does worry me. It also bugs me that medications are being advertised to the general public like new cars - or designer clothes.

We all seem to be chasing after the "bigger, better, prettier, more..." - forgetting to pay attention to the consequences that come from going for those things. It's sad and scary.

[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)