Can hearing be affected by aeds or seizures?

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Luckylukas

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The last few months it seems my hearing has been getting worse, i asked my neuro if it could be the aeds or some effects from the last grand mal i had in September but we decided to go with a hearing test first. I take 1000mg keppra twice daily, 500mg valpro twice and lamictal 200mg once. I ve never experienced any hearing probs after a seizure before and im only 28 so im pretty sure im not going deaf... well hoping

Also could it have anything to do with my attention span being affected, and just the information im taking in taking longer to process then normal?
 
As far as I know anti-seizure meds don't have a reputation for causing hearing loss. Some of them are associated with tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears) but not the ones you are one. See this http://www.ata.org/sites/ata.org/fi...by_League_for_Hard_of_Hearing_2012_Jul_12.pdf for a comprehensive list of medications that can affect hearing.

Do your hearing problems come and go, or is the loss steady and persistent? Do they occur in certain contexts (e.g. noisy restaurants) or all the time? Do you have any balance problems? Make a note of any details and definitely see a hearing specialist. They are the best ones to help you figure out what kind of loss is occurring and what the cause might be.
 
The only time I or others notice it is when I'm in a social environment, I might be talking in a group or at work and it'll take me a few seconds to realize someone's talking to me. Eg. I'm at work at my desk someone from across the room asks me a question and I'm like sorry didn't catch that. Or even people right next to me will say something and il only catch the end of it. Everything else in regards to hearing seems to be fine. I'm definately going to go to that hearing test, but I've got a feeling its got more to do with my motor skills my slurring and loss for words as well as memory are below average so wouldn't be too surprised if has something to do with maybe attention span or even just to much on my mind.
 
I do hear better out of one ear than the other, not so bad that it actually effects my hearing in general. I just related that to getting older, I'm only 37 though don't know if you call that old. I never considered it being caused by meds or seizures.

I know that my vision has gotten worse. After my very first seizure I had to go get new glasses because I had a very hard time seeing out of the ones I had at the time. My prescription had changed a lot. I related that to seizures/epilepsy not meds.
 
my hearing is going, i have tinnitus something fierce
 
I mentioned once before somewhere that it seems, given what I've experienced & seen in others I know with brain injuries, some senses may be increased or decreased (same as a deaf person many times having better sense to touch or feeling small vibrations others can't. Or a blind person's sense of hearing becomes better). Me, I have ears darn near as good as a dog, I tell people. Since I put up my Christmas blinky lights, when I'm sitting in the living room, I can actually hear them click on & off!! (The tiny wire that moves & causes the circuit to open & close to make them blink must bump against the glass bulb inside I guess.) It sounds like taking a metal fork or spoon and tapping in a glass VERY lightly. I could actually hear my mother's wristwatch ticking when no one was talking and no TV or radio was on one time! (It took me a few seconds to zero in on where the tiny "click" was coming from.)
There's 1 person with C.P. in a wheelchair that has the same degree of hearing as me, 1 that has L.G.S. who's mother told me on a chat board that her kid can apparently hear a train coming about 5 minutes before it gets near the house, another girl I recently started talking to with seizures who said her hearing is well above "normal range".......
I'm starting to theorize this is something that can happen with seizures as well as any other brain injury. Me personally, I take it as a gift being able to hear things no one else in the family can! (The fact that I have earplugs in when I have even a vacuum going doesn't bother me in the least.)
 
I'm not currently on meds (my choice, not my epileptologists) and I have tinnitus terribly...all day. My hearing is the first cue that I'm having a cp seizure because it immediately goes away, then my eye sight, then my cognitive abilities.
 
hearing can definitely be affected by a seizure depending on the seizure but not by the AEDs.
Vision can be affected with dizziness and blurred vision.
 
Some of them are associated with tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears) but not the ones you are one. See this http://www.ata.org/sites/ata.org/fil...012_Jul_12.pdf for a comprehensive list of medications that can affect hearing.

Interesting and similar to a place I have connected with... do you by chance know if Vimpat (lacosamide) is on this list? I think Vimpat came out in 2009... either that or it came out in Canada in 2009. Just curious to see if I take 2 meds or 3 that are on this tinnitus list.
 
Tinnitus has been reported as a Vimpat side effect, although only by a very small percentage of users. Given that most side effect information is under-collected and underreported, my guess would be that approx. 5% of Vimpat users experience it.
 
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