Depression med for seizures?

[JRuner]

My new Psychiatrist treating me for PTSD and Major Depression prescribed .5 mg twize a day clonazepam/Klonopin twice a day for depression and is hoping it will also help my seizures. He said after reading my seizure diary and getting my childhood history he believes I am having very short myoclonic and tonic-clonic seizures and hopes that the Epileptologist will be able to learn more by stopping it cold turkey in the hospital.

Any thoughts or experiences?

John

[horsehead]

I was on klonipin and it helped me greatly untill the doctors took me off it because my eeg and mri were normal.

[JRuner]

Horsehead how are you now? Did you have negative video EEG before the Klonopin, as I did. From what I have read EEG's are not always positive even when have physiological seizures. I just started it today so I will have to wait and see if my shaking stops or lessens.

John

[horsehead]

My spells are back. I had over 30 last month, I haven't written in my diary yet this month. i have had a few days now without any but that happens alot.I had a regular eeg before I started klonipin and it was normal and I was weaned off the klonipin before the video EEG. My spells came back the second day off the meds.I hope the med helps you. Let me know how you are doing ok.

[JRuner]

Horshead thanks you response. If I forget to let you know how I am doing feel free to PM me!

Stay Healhy,

John

[PhylisFeinerJohnson]

Hi JR, I take 400 MG of Lamictal in the AM, then 0.5 of Klonopin in the AM and 1.0 MG of Klonopin in the PM. The Klonopin works wonderfully for me. Because it's both an anti-seizure and anti-anxiety med. Hope it works as well for you!

[Cint]

Quite a few of the anti-epileptic drugs are used as Mood Stabilizers as well; Depakote, Topamax, Neurontin, Lamictal, Trileptal, Klonopin, Gabitril.

They are used for people with Bipolar disorder, along with anti-depressants.

I used to take Trileptal for seizures and as a mood stabilizer, but had to discontinue it because of the sodium level. Now I take Topamax. But it isn't helping with the seizures anymore.

[JRuner]

Cint my 10 year old daughter is on trileptal should we be getting her sodium levels checked? Doc never told us about it.

John

[KelVarQ]

I was put on Klonopin after having E surgery and ended up with "dissociation"...meaning everything "reality" was surreal to me and I was basically walking around bugging out on life since it just didn't seem real. I was per se' an imposter which Oliver Sacs discusses. Plus, I was severely depressed because of it. I must say that Klonopin was like a lifesaver for me since it helped to keep me in reality and helped stabalize the mood swings I was having. My neurologist had no refills on the Klonopin since apparently it can be very addicting. Luckily everything subsided on its own eventually.

[RobinN]

Dr Mercola just shared some new research on the importance of Vit D for Depression.

[stockiingmelissa]

I was in the hospital for 2 weeks with my first seizures. The first week I was in a small local hospital, the second I was in Strong in Rochester. At Strong they were able to pick up detectable changes in my EEG but they were unable to tell me just what type of seizure I was having. I was told that they were probably stress related and I was put on Zoloft. I was already on Topomax. I have had no improvement but just the opposite. My seizures got worse. I stopped taking the Zoloft and still no improvement.

[Endless]

Hi, Melissa. And Welcome!!!

Maybe you could consider seeing an epilepsy specialist? There are lots of us in here who were misdiagnosed by general neurologists, and didn't get proper treatment until we saw an epileptologist.

The fact that your seizures got worse on the medication says it's not the RIGHT medication (and maybe not the right diagnosis).