my daughter has seizures

[sweetshun]

hi, my name is niesha. my five year old daugher has been having seizures since she was three. it was hard to deal with at first but i have gotten used to it. she has been taking keppra since july of 08 and now the pharmacy has decided to give her the generic brand of this medicine. now i have to call her doctor to get a prescription saying that she can only have the brand name form of the medicine. if any one has any suggections about this medicine will you please let me know.

[epileric]

I don't really have any suggestions as to what to do regarding Keppra. I used to be on it & had awful side-effects but everyone is different. Only you & your daughter really know if it's best for her.

You can check out this site http://www.drugdigest.org/wps/portal/ddigest. Just type Keppra (or the name of any other drug you'd like to know about) in the search box in the top left.

This site has a lot of parents with kids who have epilepsy so I think you'll have some good replies soon. Meanwhile put your feet up & have some coffee and check out all the great stuff we got.

[Crystal11]

Hello- I am dealing with the same situation. Medicaid wants me to now take Levetiracetam instead of Keppra which I would rather take Keppra since it works pretty well- I also take Tegretol XR but there is no generic for Tegretol XR..
Others on here have told me to have the doctor write medically necessary or have them write out "brand" on it.. there is some other ideas people have given too..
You're still getting keppra in the levetiracetam but its FDA regulation is 80-125% same effectivness as the brand name. I have a bottle here of the generic Keppra but I still have some left overs of the "good stuff" as I call it: Keppra. Anyways go to my thread called "Medicaid...why?" and there is some info people wrote to me that i found helpful.

Take care, be safe.
-CM

[skillefer]

Hi niesha! Welcome to CWE. If your daughter ends up taking the generic for any time at all, keep an eye on her. Generics are not as stable in the amount of active ingredients in each pill. Some batches are only 80% as effective as the name brand , and other batches will be 120% as effective. So keep an eye on her. Some people who go from name brand to generic experience more seizures because the medication is not being maintained at a steady dosage.

[LivingFruity]

Hi Niesha Welcome to CWE! My 7 year old son had his first seizure at the age of 2, it was scary. He was not put on any medication at the time. He didn't have any more until the age of 5. After experiencing 3 in a 6 month period, he was given a diagnosis of epilepsy in 2007. It was hard to deal with at first, but then I became proactive in his treatment and in researching the possible cause and what might lead to healing for him.

We've chose to treat our son without medications, but Keppra was one of the first meds that a former neurologist suggested to us. I did a lot of researching before deciding it was not for us. If it is working for you, great! I would definitely get the doctor to write a note saying that your daughter must have the Keppra for medical reasons. All the research I did on Keppra shows that there are differences in the generic and name brand that can upset the balance you've created. The generic could trigger more seizures.

Make yourself at home and have a look through the forums. There's a lot of good information and encouragement to be found here

[sixpack]

Hi,

My eldest, Lindsay, has a lot of issues, one being seizures. She takes 3 meds. One of which is Keppra. Our pharmacist says that one shouldn't change back and forth from generic/brand and back again. If you start off on generic, you shouldn't have any problems. Because, as others have stated, generic formulations aren't exact.

Generic Keppra just came out in Nov I believe. The neurologist didn't write "dispense as written". The pharmacist filled it as brand but called the doc and asked if we should continue that. I think sometimes docs forget to do that. Still other times the doctor doesn't feel the brand is necessary. In my daughter's case, the doc wants her on the brand name.

[Bernard]

Hi Niesha, welcome to the forum.

Keppra is the only anti-epileptic drug that is metabolized in the kidneys, not the liver. It's good to be aware of that in case your daughter ever has kidney or urinary tract problems.

Also, if she experiences strong, irrational moodiness, it's likely "Kepprage" a known side effect from the drug. You can try vitamin B6 to mitigate it.