motorbill66 |
Last Activity: 12-27-2011 11:35 AM
About Me
- About motorbill66
- Seizure Background
- Began having tonic clonics at the age of fourty in 1988 after the prescription of Naproxyn AND amantadine at the same time for a virus which was affecting my joints. I almost immediately went into hallucinations and the next day seizures began. Then nothing for a year. After that they came back with a vengence!
First neurologist put me on Tegretol, but I kept breaking through til I was going toxic on the stuff. I could taste it constantly, like a battery in my mouth. Second neurologist put me on Depakote, which I have seen to be a drug for partial seizures, but it worked for my TCs. In fact, it seemed to be the ONLY thing that worked. Problem was, my hair started falling out, I gained lots of weight, and I began to have pretty bad tremors. These are all mentioned as side effects of Depakote (sodium valproate), and boy do I get them! Now I've been breaking through on the Depakote as well, having had three TCs since the beginning of December '09.
The neurologist has now introduced me to Lamictal, which he says is a relatively new family of drug. The taper on period is long, and I can't even begin to taper slowly off the Depakote for almost two months, but I'm hopeful (One really MUST be with this disease) that this new drug will work, and that the side effects will be less awful. I restore cars for a living, and I'm an artist and modelmaker avocationally, so you can imagine what tremors do for me!
I'm sorry about the long-winded intro, but frankly, it's lonely out here, and there's really nobody to share this stuff with, so thanks for listening. - Treatments
- 1000 mg Depakote daily, but starting Lamictal now
- Location
- Near Ft. Collins, Collorado
- Interests
- Trains, Planes, Automobiles, All kinds of artwork, writing, reading especially physics and sciences