Going Crazy With Food

[Pnal]

Hi Everyone,

My son is on Trileptal. He outgrew his dosage and we just increased last week. He's been doing fine. Two days ago he started aggressively eating. He eats everything available, every hour. I have no problem with that since he's a growing boy.

Today he had an "aura" -hand tingling - which is usually a sign to all of us that he's outgrowing his medicine and will start having seizures soon. He had no seizures, though.

Question - does the amount of food a person eats effect the potency of the medication they are on? I'm wondering if he had eaten a little less, if the medication would have done it's job fully. Like alcohol, if you drink on a full stomach, you don't feel the effects of it as much as drinking on an empty stomach.

Any insight would be appreciated!

Thank you,
Patricia

 

[Cint]

Question - does the amount of food a person eats effect the potency of the medication they are on? I'm wondering if he had eaten a little less, if the medication would have done it's job fully. Like alcohol, if you drink on a full stomach, you don't feel the effects of it as much as drinking on an empty stomach.

Actually, with E, the amount of food a person eats won't effect the efficacy of the AED. E isn't like diabetes, where you have to carefully monitor what you eat in order to control the condition. The breakthrough seizures can be attributed to lack of sleep, lack of medication, or an illness. The patient should have a blood level done to measure the half life of the medication.

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/medicine_dosage

Each antiepileptic medication has a "half-life," which is the length of time that it takes for its level in your blood to decrease by one-half. These vary widely from medication to medication. The half-lives of common seizure medicines can be as short as 2 hours and as long as 100 hours, depending on the individual medicine and some other factors. If you take a particular medication regularly for a period about five times as long as its half-life, its level in your blood will reach a state of equilibrium called the "steady state level." The levels in your blood produced by each dose are then consistent, and measurements taken should be meaningful. Usually the doctor will want to measure a "trough level," taken shortly before the morning dose. The doctor also may want to know the "peak level," usually measured 1 to 4 hours after the highest dose of the day. Because peak levels are sometimes used to assess adverse effects that might be the result of high levels of medication in the blood (called toxicity), peak levels also may be taken at the time that suspected toxic effects occur.

 

[Pnal]

Thank you. This is information I did not know about. I will see how he does today. His hands were still feeling "funny" when he left for school.

 

[N Sperlo]

Pnal,

I am not familiar enough with Trileptal, but when I was on Depakote, my sister did a report on my epilepsy. One thing she did was record what I ate in a day. It was a whole page. Keep in mind that I was 16 and about 110 lbs. There were things such as whole watermelons or cantalopes. Bags of carrots. Bowls of rice. Jars of pickles. I was like a pregnant lady. "Fried banana-pickle-tuna sandwich topped with ice cream? Yes please!"

If he isn't overweight (or doesn't have any other health issues) and you can afford it, I don't see it as a problem. I still eat throughout the day, but usually don't have large meals. When I do, I'll usually start eating an hour or so later. I'm 27 now and weigh 125 lbs.

Good luck with everything and keep that medicine under control.

 

[N Sperlo]

... Now I'm gonna get back to this mustakacholi, peach Juicy Twists, and cinnamon roll, before I go home where my wife has a bowl of white rice for me to eat just before my nap.

 

[dbrim]

I had the same problem with epilim, as soon as my dose increased so did my appetite and my waistline. I also found it nearly impossible to lose weight on epilim also. By the time I was at my highest dose, 2500mg a day, I was putting on about 3/4 lbs a week!!!! So I went on to ethosuximide, well the weight dropped off. My appetite was complety dose related but if his bmi is in a normal range then I wouldn't worry, I don't think the size of the appetite is as much of a problem as the type of diet he has, eating a lot of healthy foods, (such as a whole canteloupe - I'm really impressed by that! ) will have less impact than the burgers and pizzas I used to stuff my face with.
X

 

[valeriedl]

I was on two different meds, at separate times, that caused drastic effects in my eating. I'm sorry but I don't remember what they were and I know I wasn't on them for very long.

With one I didn't eat anything. My family pretty much had to force me to eat because I was loosing too much weight too fast.

The other I ate everything in sight. My husband told me that I needed to stop eating like I was because I was gaining weight like crazy. When he said that I just started waiting till he went to bed then eat a half gallon of ice cream. I was pretty much 'sneak eating' around him and hiding all the junk food containers under things in the garbage can.

When we told the neruo about these things he took me off of those meds and changed them to others because those weren't side effects that we though were good for me.

I'd talk to the nuro about things that are going on with him and get his advice when he changes meds.

Pnal,

I am not familiar enough with Trileptal, but when I was on Depakote, my sister did a report on my epilepsy. One thing she did was record what I ate in a day. It was a whole page. Keep in mind that I was 16 and about 110 lbs. There were things such as whole watermelons or cantalopes. Bags of carrots. Bowls of rice. Jars of pickles. I was like a pregnant lady. "Fried banana-pickle-tuna sandwich topped with ice cream? Yes please!"

If he isn't overweight (or doesn't have any other health issues) and you can afford it, I don't see it as a problem. I still eat throughout the day, but usually don't have large meals. When I do, I'll usually start eating an hour or so later. I'm 27 now and weigh 125 lbs.

Good luck with everything and keep that medicine under control.

This sounds like me when I was on the one med. We couldn't afford to keep me fed!!!! My husband said that we could either pay for groceries or electricity but we couldn't do both in one month :roflmao:

 

[kirsty1327]

You could ask your neuro if the hand tingling is from his meds being put up and if it's a side effect??? I know topamax did this to me when I had to increase it.just a thought????
When I was on just topamax I lost so much weight I was just skin and bones and was still having seizures so I had epilim added and started eating like a horse immediately.I'm now at a healthly weight but have to be so careful now because I think I'd just blow up like a ballon if I just ate what I wanted!!!! You can't win with these drugs.

 

[Nakamova]

The tingling can also be caused by low potassium levels, a known Topamax side effect. Ask the neuro about this possibility, and consider making sure your son's diet contains plenty of potassium-rich foods, and or a supplement.