Epileptic seizures symptoms and conditions

Hi all...WOW, hard to believe that so many of us are experiencing similar side effects.

I started taking Yasmin almost 2 1/2 weeks ago. Two days after I started taking it, I noticed I was starting to get nauseous, brief sharp shooting pains in my abdomen just under my left rib and sometimes a wee bit of a burning sensation in the same area. These sharp but brief pains occur anywhere from 4 times to maybe 15 or 20 times in a day and I almost NEVER when I am just sitting still or laying down. These pains are almost always in the same spot so I find it hard to believe it could be from gas although I AM much gassier. Wouldn't gas pains travel? I find I am burping alot and just generally gassy feeling. The other thing I noticed is that I dropped 8 pounds in the first 5 days of taking Yasmin. WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?

I pretty much have to continue taking BC because my doctor put me on them to see if they would stop my epileptic seizures which occur only when I ovulate. We are testing to see if stopping ovulation will stop the seizures. They think it is all related to peri-menopause. I'm 48. Sheeesh. Does anyone else have these sharp intermittent shooting pains under their ribs???? This is scaring me.

Hi all. I was diagnosed 3 or 4 years ago with epilepsy. So far, I have on about 5 different epilepsy meds. I can't recall the first 3 but had to get off them because of physical side-effects. My last one was Dilatin which worked pretty well for a year. I slept great - 8 hours on the dot. Then, I started to have short seizures that began to successively lengthen. So, I was switched to Keppra.

I started at 250mg/2xday on Keppra and now am up to 1000mg/2xday. I also started taking B6 100mg/day. A couple of days after starting Keppra, I started to get slight headaches. These went away after about 2 weeks. I also got a numb patch on the same place on the bottom of each foot. When I went up to 500mg/2xday, the numb patch spread, I started to feel off-balance, and I started to get the "rage" symptoms. I went up to 1000mg/2xday and most of the bottom of my two feet went numb and cold, I began to get slight tingling in my fingers and a mild case of tightness in my chest. I still felt off-balance and the rage symptoms were there. It began to get hard to get to sleep and I would get up unnecessarily early and not be able to fall back asleep. I want off this med. Maybe it works great for other people but for me it I take it at the levels I need to, I won't be able to work or do much of anything.

Mon Jan 17, 2004
I just wanted to say my son who is 8 has every kind of seizure, including status epileptic seizures. He automatically goes into status as soon as he falls asleep. He has been on Felbatol for the last 4 years. We have had are ups and downs. He also takes Depakote sprinkles. Felbatol has made him drop 45 pounds at one time, but I think overall it has helped his seizure control. Does anyone have ideas that may help my child out????

I am the person who posted the above message about kidney pain as a bad side-effect of N. use for fibromyalgia -- I use the drug for muscle pain, and to get to sleep at night -- and am at the point of trying to lower the dose, as well as wean myself off of it, before permanent damage can happen to my kidneys (and I hate the brain-fog).

Some research into the chemical and physical effects of the med lead me to believe that it works by helping the kidneys take a certain substance out of the blood stream -- the same way that dialysis works for kidney-failure, so definately Neurontin will affect the operation of the kidneys (see posting on "husband taking it for prostate problems" -- is this because of problems urinating?).

There have NOT been any studies on how Neurontin works -- or dangers/side-effects of the drug --for any other use besides epileptic seizures. If a person is experiencing bad side-effects he or she should immediately contact the doctor who prescibed it and ask for a different med, or for the dosage to be reduced (don't just stop taking it, which is what a lot of people do about bad side-effects -- that could be dangerous.). Such use makes a patient a guiney-pig for research, and the makers of Neurontin have been under attack for aggressively pushing it for what are called "off-label" uses.

If the doctor won't listen to you about this, find another one. IT'S YOUR BODY and no one knows better how you feel inside of it. Also you could experiment with withdrawing yourselve from high levels of the dosage, or asking that the amount of the med in the rx be reduced...fast- withdrawal sometimes causes seizures (as I understand it) and of course you have the complete right to ask a doctor to listen to your symptoms and needs.

Also if you're a person who notices bad effects in a child or a spouse you should make it an urgent project to point the bad effects out to the doctor, to become an advocate for the person who cannot do it. Good luck. JanK in Portland OR (and I am not a doctor, just a person with a lot of experience in surviving the American health system.)

RE: Neurontin and "anger problem".

The only FDA-approved use for Neurontin is for epileptic seizures, as the major effect is for involuntary muscle spasms. Describing something as an anger-problem is too vague to give a specific answer. Do you hurt people or yourself? Do you break things or do actions over which you have no control? Do you have insomnia that makes the anger-problem worse?

I have read of very bad side-effects from trying to get off of Paxil, and it's possible that the Neurontin is just an effort to try to deal with being on Paxil too long -- which sometimes happens, and the effectiveness of the drug goes down, something like heroin or cocaine.

Who told you the Neurontin was for an anger-problem, and do you have a choice of who you see or what you take? If it was me I would get off of both these drugs, and find out more about their physical effects on personal biology. Jan S. Kauffman, Neurontin userid, Master's degree in ounselling, alcohol and drug-abuse rehab professional.

RE: Neurontin and anger-outbursts

This is a follow-up for the side-effect I just posted. The problem of anger-outbursts can usually be traced to low levels of frustration-tolerance, and the good-feeling-feedback one gets from acting-out by doing something our society describes as "anger." This can take the effect of violence in some form or another, which usually gets a person into trouble with societal norms. It FEELS good to act-out and dissipate the frustration which may be described as feeling intolerable or inevitable.

Since Neurontin seems to work by lowering actual nerve-impulses that make muscles twitch, causing pain-signals, or restless-leg syndrome, or epileptic seizures (for example) it makes sense to me that a person suffering from OCD (Obsessional-Compulsive-Disorder)and anxiety would find the "need" to act out on obsessional actions like anger-outbursts -- which drain the buildup of anxiety and compulsion emotions -- helped by a drug that dulls or circumvents the nerve-signals causing emotional distress (Neurontin).

To expect or want a drug, any drug, to teach one how to tolerate frustration and anxiety without side-effects is unrealistic if not impossible. If you were MY client I would work with you to de-sensitize you to small levels of anxiety and frustration, while weaning you off of all meds. That way you would learn that the self-control is in your own hands, and give you the tools to deal with it without the crutch of looking for exactly-the-right drug. It's a matter of learning how to control one's own behavior in acceptable forms, like exercise, that drain-off the emotional charge that "feels uncontrollable" You CAN learn how to control your behavior without terrible emotional distress. Jan S. Kauffman, Neurontin userid, Masters degree in Counselling, alcohol and drug abuse rehab professional.