Anyone experiences with Vimpat (lacosamide) yet?

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Lynn, my daughter recently upped her Vimpat to 100mg 2x a day. Her current Lamictal dose (actually generic lamotrigine) is 100mg in the morning and 200mg in the evening. She originally took Trileptal for 4 years, but had breakthrough seizures and side effects she didn't want to live with anymore. The lamictal and vimpat don't seem to be controlling her seizures any better though, she went from about 1 per month to 4 or 5 per week recently. She may go off the lamictal completely, we think it is affecting her concentration and she has some difficult college classes coming up. She's just starting therapy for her anxiety and panic attacks because she was reluctant to add more medication. Just wish we could figure out if the anxiety and panic attacks are side effects or not. It is definitely a conundrum.

Cheryl, is Vimpat your daughter's first medication? Glad it seems to be helping with her seizures, hope she continues to do well on it.
 
bandmom, I truly empathize with you and your daughter. Do you mind telling me what the side effects of the trileptal were for her? Doyou suspect the vimpat regarding the panic attacks? Thanks for your input. It is greatly helpful.
 
The worst side effect of the trileptal was double vision in the morning. It would usually hit her about an hour after her morning dose and last about an hour. She was in high school then, and often had to call me to take her home until she recovered. She couldn't see well enough to stay at school, and needed help to walk down the hall to the office to call me. She also had some dizziness and nausea, but that was most likely when she took trileptal without enough food. They told her to make sure she finished her breakfast before taking it.

Something we noticed when she stopped the trileptal was weight loss. We thought it was a lamictal side effect, but it was then explained to us that she most likely had increased appetite and weight gain while on trileptal, so stopping trileptal then resulted in weight loss.

I can't say the vimpat alone is causing anxiety and panic attacks because they started before the vimpat (on lamictal). But I do feel that they have increased on the vimpat. Taking more than one drug at a time really confuses things, it was so much easier when she was taking only trileptal. I'm happy to give whatever input I can, hope it helps.
 
Thanks bandmom. My son was on Depakote alone for about 18 years with almost no seizures and only weight gain and trouble sleeping as side effects. However he wound up with stage 3 testicular cancer (now in remission) and that along with chemotherapy threw off the whole balance of things and we've been struggling to contol seizures and mitigate side effects ever since. It always helps to hear other's experiences. If nothing else, the take away from all the input is that I'm not alone in this, I'm not imagining things and what I observe with med changes is real. Doctors can so easily dismiss my feedback and make me feel that the symptoms I report are not a result of the drugs. But I know my son very well and I refuse to give up finding the best possible combination for him. It is complicated and we've been on a long journey with meds but I refuse to give up. Thanks again for your input.
 
My friend calls it the evil drug. I'm on 100 and 100. I have to get off of it again. Keppra works better for me. My girfriend said she called the Dr. and told him she felt like killing people for know reason.That's about the time she called Cps on me. I talked to her doctors up at harborview and they got her off and she is so happy. And so am I. I am having pannick attacks, maybe because of every thing I am going thrugh.But it is a dreppressing drug.
 
Stilldancing, do you have suspicions that the panic attacks might be related to the vimpat?
 
Vimpat

My son was put on vimpat - couldn't sleep - got nasty and short tempered and started acting like a complete stranger. he wanted to die and he wanted to kill- He is now in prison doing 5 years - we took him off vimpat and he is back to his old self on KEPRA - Please watch for these terrible side effects.
 
I have been on it for a long time it makes me tired. I sure would not put my son on it though. After experiencing it. I think it is to hard for kids to understand. Afterall kids are dealing with enough.
 
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