Seizure meds symptoms and conditions

I will never put this drug in my body and I will never forget the levaquin night. Dad was already on an antibiotic. He’s been gone 8 years now so this is somewhat of a blur. His catheter sprung a leak so he had to go to the urologist. While there doc noticed a UTI and prescribed the levaquin. Even though dad was already on an antibiotic he was told to start the Levaquin once he was done with the other. Who knows if the infection was even there by the time he took the levaquin.
Dad was on drugs for seizures. (Unexplained seizures to this day)
I filled the prescription. I was the one down on him for being on so many drugs. I should have read and noticed it said not to take this drug if you’re taking seizure meds. I’d programmed myself by then that things are what they are and no one would listen to me about the drugs and side effects etc. They all see me as a witchdoctor as my husband would tell me. The doctor later told me he doesn’t have the staff to stand around checking drug interactions all day long…..
Dad took the levaquin. I said let’s get you out for a while and come down to my house. I drove the 2 miles to my house with him and by the time we arrived he could barely stand. It was all I could do to get him into the living room. He couldn’t get comfortable. He seemed out of sorts and agitated. I assumed it was his surroundings and he just wanted to be home in his chair. I struggled to get him to my car and back home. .
Once back to his house, we were talking, his eyes went off into a dead stair. He wasn’t aware of anything going on around him. They became fixated (seizure). This lasted a long minute or so and I watched his eyes come back and him come back to awareness. It was then I went to the printout info on taking this drug and saw to not take it with seizure drugs. I called the doctor and was told to immediately stop the drug. (if my memory serves me, he took one a day).
Later that evening, I went to check on him lying on the couch. He had this dopey smile on his face and when he spoke this really creepy gibberish came out. He wasn’t making any sense. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. My sister and her boyfriend arrived. Dad was calling my husband by MY name and insisting he wanted to march. ( He used to march in the front of the parade every year in his sailor uniform) My sister and her boyfriend had to hold him up to march. His legs and muscles were too weak to hold himself up. He was like a noodle. He would not sit down or calm down. It was constant moving him from one place to another.
I offered to spend the night and sit with dad. It didn’t look like either of us was going to get much sleep that night. Dad laid awake most of the night. Occasionally he would speak to me and I could barely tell he was indeed in there ….. somewhere. He looked wired with a somewhat terrified look in his eyes. He could barely speak and just seemed to be on a bad trip. I moved him around the living room all night from couch to chair to chair. He finally fell asleep and I dozed. I woke to find he had slid out of the chair and was on the floor staring at me. Huge wide awake eyes looking at me when I woke. Mom woke up. We helped him to the kitchen for breakfast. He did really well walking. You could tell the drug was wearing off. I felt some relief. I went to work.
After work I went straight to dad’s to take him to the doctor. We all gathered in his office at the hospital to discuss trying to get dad off most or all of his drugs. We were grasping at anything to give him relief. Herbal remedies were finally being considered for some of his conditions. It was time for his next Levaquin dose. He went into what the dr. called a “life threatening” seizure.
He was rushed to ICU and pumped up on more drugs. It was said his seizure drug wasn’t working because…. He had a seizure. No one would even consider the Levaquin causing ANY of this. The “side effect” was simply treated with more heavy duty drugs. The new seizure drug was doing practically the same thing the Levaquin did! Or from what I’m reading and researching online now.. maybe it was the levaquin. Doctors would tell me it was long out of his system and wasn’t causing any adverse effects. You could watch them put the new seizure drug in him and watch him leave reality and his mind. I was later told he had a rare brain disease. They couldn’t explain why this was happening, nor would admit that dad was in there somewhere. I’d see him there when the drugs were wearing off, before the next dose would arrive. We’d hold normal conversations. My husband saw him too. All my other family members were FREEKING OUT at his condition and didn't have their minds about them... in my opinion. They couldn't and wouldn't believe a drug could cause any of this. I can’t recall the name of the seizure drug. I have this all written down somewhere around here!
I do believe though, they would have never changed the seizure drug if not for the levaquin causing a seizure by being prescribed because the doctor has no staff to check drug interactions. I will always believe it was the Levaquin that started him on his downhill climb to not being with us today. He was a strong man before Levaquin. He became weaker and weaker to the point of getting pneumonia and having a heart attack before leaving us 4 months later. Levaquin may not have been the end of him.. it was just the beginning of the end………….

I've been on Topamax for almost a year. I've had auras for years which were misdiagnosed as hypoglycemia episodes, then started having grand mals after detoxing from alcohol (I'm sober now), continued to have them in sobriety (I guess I messed up my brain from alcohol). I tried Tegretol but it made me groggy. Anyway, a few months into using Topamax I stopped sweating completely and got the numbness and tingling in my extremities, which drives me crazy. I also have trouble with urination, I've been put on water pills. I live in a desert climate and during the summer had bad problems with overheating, had to drink so much water that I had trouble with water retention and my electrolytes got messed up. I had no idea that it was the Topamax--the doctors put me through multiple blood tests, I discovered it might be the medicine by doing my own research online. I'm tapering off Topamax and trying the Low Glycemic Index Treatment to see if I can be off meds and not have auras because I don't want to be on seizure meds if I can help it. The withdrawal is pretty bad--anyone else have the problems with no sweating and wicked withdrawal?

19 year old daughter had shot in may, experienced severe soreness at the injection site, nausea, fainting, lethargy and irritability. Holly continued to complain of general malaise and achy joints. Holly had her 2nd shot in July and left for College in August. When she visited for Thanksgiving break in November, she experienced her 1st known grand mal seizure. We did not get the 3rd shot of the series. Since then she has had several more seizures and was put on anti-seizure meds which at this time are working well. Holly continues to complain of "brain fog" which was present after the first shot and has yet to resolve. She is still irritable, which makes the situation she is dealing with concerning the seizures and the restrictions that she had, almost impossible to deal with.

I am 32 years old, and still have acne. I have been taking it for almost 14 years now. I know that Lamictal causes skin rashes. I asked my neurologist if Lamictal causes acne. He said no. I will never be able to get rid of acne, as long as I keep taking it. I have been seizure-free for over 2.5 years now. Dad won't let me get off of it, and be on primidone only. It's more important to keep driving seizure-free, than to have clear skin.

My nephew is 7 and has been on Singulair for probably 4 years. His symptoms developed over time but recently have exploded. He has epilepsy so most of the things that he has experienced has been blamed on that. However, today his doctor took him off singulair and said he believes his symptoms are caused from the drug. He started having head drop seizures, fell out of his desk and cut his face one day. He has also been depressed, had severe anxiety attacks for the past 8 months. Several months ago, he started having such severe nightmares that it is almost impossible to get him to go to bed and go to sleep. Recently he began "seeing dead people" and "monsters" that we trying to kill him even when he was awake. He has also cried many nights with leg cramps and severe stomach pain. I will update this page in two - three weeks to let you know if these problems go away now that we have stopped the singulair.

lamictal controls seizures if you take it at the right time. i am on 200 at night and 200 in the morning plus epilim. sometimes i just sit and cry wen im trying to concentrate on reading books i have to study or trying to remember work i learnt at school which has left my brain. im failing school not matter how hard i try, i study all the time then the next day i have forgotten it. im so young and i havnt even started my future yet and i may have screwed it already. failing exams because i forgot wat i learnt the night before hurts so bad. its hard to say "hey everyone the reason i failed is because lamictal screws my memory" i know thats what it is. i was extremely intelligent before i started taking it, but now im a failure. i guess deep inside i know really im not a failure, but lamictal makes me one. : ( p.s add a constant hand tremor and sudden jerking movements every now and then.

Started coreg in 2000. 2-3 Months into taking Coreg I noticed my back beginning to ache. I questioned my Dr. about possible side effects and he looked at me like I was nuts. I have been scanned and examined in all possible ways and nothing interesting was found that could be causing my back pain. Jump ahead many years to the present and again I have been scanned even more than before to try to find the cause of my pain. Like before nothing interesting has been found. I still feel coreg was the cause originally and is now continuing my pain. 7.5mg vicadins won't even dent the pain. Any related comments would be appreciated.

Greg

I believe my son is having complex partial seizures. He went through all the others mentioned here. Still having some issues with anger, diarrea, nightmares, and rash. Its been 3 weeks. I would be interested to hear about anyone having seizures after the meds are discontinued. Thanks all.

Levaquin caused me to have a seizure.....after being seizure free for many years !!!! The Dr asked me why I didnt tell him I had a seizure disorder? He had just handed me scripts for my seizure meds on them !! Also that was the reason I saw him in the first place. Then he found I had a kidney infection and gave me Levaquin SAMPLES.
I am also feeling jittery, and have had some tremors.
This has me so depressed....he could have given me the package insert to read....then I would not have taken it at all!

I've been on Topamax (for seizures) for almost 2 years now, gradually increasing my dosage from 150 mg/day to 400 mg/day when I learned that 150mg is a migraine sufferer's dosage and not a Epilepsy dosage. I mention that because at 150mg, the side effects were present, but tolerable. I had the tingling fingers, eye twitching that was only behind my right eye (seems everyone only has it behind their right eye...why is that?), I can't find the right words in conversation, memory loss , constant sleepiness, backaches, depression, etc. At 400mg, I was an emotional wreck...I could not handle my emotions anymore. I would cry hysterically when talking for no reason, I couldn't concentrate on my work as an analyst, I had to read and re-read instructions in order to understand them, and sometimes read them out loud....and this is the kicker...sometimes when I'm buying something and at the check-out, it'll take forever to do something as simple to count out change. I have given the wrong change to cashiers a few times and then told them something to cover up my embarrassment like "Oh, I thought I gave you a quarter!", when in all actuality, I thought I gave them the correct change.
I feel like a moron pretty much all of the time. I used to pride myself on my intelligence and speaking ability but on Topamax, that is seriously diminished.
I don't know if this is related, but because of my inability to concentrate, I lost my job in Nov. '06. I thought I lost my insurance too, so I made the decision to stop my seizure meds, thinking that I was "cured". Well, I had another seizure in Jan '07 and am back on Topamax...depressed, twitching eye, the whole gamut. But you know what? The entire month of January, before my seizure...before Topamax...was the happiest I've been in sooo long. It's not worth losing a few pounds for.

I have been on tegretol since I was approx. 15years old, I am now 41years old. In the beginning (probably since I was so young) I really don't remember too many side effects. Until 2 years ago when after complaining to my doctor about extreme weight gain did he take me off tegretol and move me over to this "new miracle drug called Topamax". Well maybe it would have worked if the dosage was correct. I personally feel my doctor did not equate the dosage I was taking with tegretol to topamax. Well after eight weeks of suffering and I mean having 3 seizures a day from 0 a day. I demanded to go back weight gain or not. That's when the side effects hit! and well!!! All of a sudden I had migraines daily, I now suffered from Vertigo, I went into depression and was seriously talking suicide. It was bad for about a month. Good news a year later everything went back to normal... I will now stay with Tegretol. I have been taking seizure meds since I was 7yrs old and this one seems to be the best after your body stabilizes.

I gained 20lbs in one month. Stopped taking it on my own. At that rate I'd be obese in no time. Dr's have diagnosed me as skitzophenic, Bi Polar, and finnaly temporal lobe epilepsy. Any others with temporal lobe epilepsy? I get symptoms which are similar to other mental disorders. But since I've been on anti seizure meds, I have been much better. I get episodes periodically, sometimes I'm ok for 5yrs or more. It's triggered by stress. I've been takin Lamictal for it and no side effects. Anyone with a mental disorder should look into temporal lobe epilepsy. My Dr. is Dr. Braverman. His office is in Manhattan. He does a BEAM test to rule it out. The BEAM test involves putting a skull cap with electrodes in it to moniter changes in the brain. Flashing light and noises are used during the test. He found an area of the temporal lobe which was a hot spot. It seems that there is a bundle of nerves there which fire during a seiaure. These trigger other nerves to fire in the brain and it escelates until I get racing thoughts and begin to act abnormally. I've taken many different drugs and all have side effects. Most make the problem worse. When I realize I'm getting worse, I refuse the medication and in each instance, I get better. The first time it happened, I was 18. They put me in the mental ward in the hospital and gave me drugs for skitzophrenia including Thorazine which is the worst drug of all. I finally realized that the only way to get out of the hospital was to hide the medicine under my tongue. I came out of it after I stopped taking the drugs. Everyone told me I had to stay on them, but I refused. I was fine for four years without any meds. Then it happened again and the same thing happened as the first time. I am very leary now about taking any drug. The Lamictal has been the best one for me so far. I only have a problem if I'm under severe stress. Alcohol can also trigger it. I don't get Grand Mal seizures. Dr's don't know all that much about the brain. They give these drugs by trial and error. If one doesn't work, they try another one. I feel best when I exercise, take vitamins, and eat healthy. I also begin to smoke when a seizure starts. I can't sleep during the seizure. Dr's try to get me to sleep whith various meds. But I always stop taking them when I feel better since thay all have side effects.

Reading all these posts, I have to add my bit. The side effects of Neurontin are very similar to any sedating drug. Memory, problem solving, dry mouth, and some weight gain are to be expected. Neurontin is prescribed for seizure and pain that is connected to the nervous system, such as phantom limb pain and MS.
All patients should have their blood terted every 6 months if they are taking a seizure med or any tylonel daily. All meds have side effects, you have to decide if it is helping your medical condition more than another drug could, if you are better off with it or without it.
I have been taking 800 mg Neurontin for several years. I used to take 1200, but was feeling overly tired and lethargic and we (dr and myself) discussed it, and changed the dose. I am better off taking it, my seizures are under control with it, and it has less side effects than other seizure meds. And with my seizures under control, my migraine have been kept under control. (A lucky side effect for me!)My dr explained many persons with epilepsy do suffer migraines.
As far as Jan S. Kauffman wondering about taking it for anger control, certain types of epilepsy can and do cause anger outbursts, and that is most likely why this person is taking this.
Good luck to everyone taking the Neurontin, it has been great for me.