Keppra valpro and lamictal... Will the threesome work??

[Luckylukas]

Im currently taking 500mg of keppra three times a day 500mg of valpro twice a day as well as 100mg of lamictal (as of two weeks ago).The combination of valpro and lamictal was suggested by my neuro as together they work well when combined. The introduction of lamictal was introduced after i had a grand mal at the start of the year, hoping this would help i Started working my way up to 100mg a day. But about a month ago when I had just reached the 75mg of lamictal a day level, I had another grand mal while training (which can be a trigger for me now although never used to be...). So I guess my question is should 75mg of lamictal been slowly increased over period of months be enough to help prevent the seizures at that stage? Or should I write it off and perhaps consider an alternative?

 

[masterjen]

Everyone is different, so unfortunately the only answer is to give it a good try once you are at the recommended dose. Even at the dose you are on you my start to see some improvement, but often it is not until you are on a dose for quite a while that improvement starts to appear. And this improvement may not be completely resolution of seizures; pay attention to other things too, like fewer or less intense auras, recovery time after a seizure, intensity and duration of your seizures, etc. These sorts of things might show up first. Good luck to you!

 

[Luckylukas]

Thankyou masterjen, I have noticed a few myoclonic jerks everynow and again, mostly while drifting off to sleep. Ive experienced these before while swapping meds, but they where a lot more severe compared to these little ones.

 

[Nakamova]

I agree with masterjen, transition times are hard on the brain, and it may take a little while for your brain to adjust to the meds. Hopefully you'll see improvement and feel better after a sometime at a stable dose. Having three different meds in your system can take some getting used to. And Valproate makes Lamictal stay in your system a lot longer than it would if you were taking it on its own, so that's another factor to consider. For that reason too, it's unlikely that your Lamictal dose will need to go any higher than the 100mg level.

 

[toro]

I agree with masterjen and Nakamova. The meds are different for everyone.

I saw only a very small decrease in my seizure frequency when I changed my meds. Lamictal is also a very gradual increase process. The drug-blood level equilibrium level is very peculiar and needs to be adjusted for each person and can change rapidly with drug levels.

I saw only very small changes in seizure frequency, then I finally hit 350 ~ 400 mg a day and the frequency dropped by more than an order of magnitude.