Tired all the time

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

Haffgus

New
Messages
15
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My 15 year-old daughter was diagnosed with generalized tonic clonic epilepsy in January. After trying Keppra and Lamictal, which didn't work for her, she has been on 1500 mg of Depakote the last five months and has been seizure free. However, she is always tired. She can sleep over 12 hours a day and is still tired. We reduced her Depakote to 1250mg two weeks ago, but that has had little effect on her tiredness (she is still in the middle of the therapeutic range with the decrease). She has been on Fluoxetine for four years as well. I wonder if the combination of the two medicines is contributing to her tiredness. Anyone have any experience being on both? She also has type 1 diabetes, but managing that is currently the easiest part of her life right now. We had her thyroid tested again last week and those levels are normal. Any ideas?
 
My wife was a complete zombie when she was on Depakote. She couldn't tolerate that drug at all.
 
I'm on Depakote now and a few other meds and I'm tired. I usually get at least 8 hours of sleep at night but I'll still have to take a nap in the afternoon.

I know I was on one combo of meds that made me so tired it was all I could do to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. My parents would bring me food into the bedroom just so I'd eat. I've been on so many different meds that I don't know what they were and I don't know if I was on Depakote too at the time that this happened.

I'd talk to the dr about maybe taking her off the Depakote of you think that's what could be causing the problem. I know how frustrating it is trying to find the right meds that work and can you can deal with, but it's just something that you have to do sometimes.
 
I don't know if this has helped anyone but what about exercise? I started a workout regimen and that perked me up a little. I'm not on the same drug but I don't know if that would help. I'd say try to, don't go super hard but any little bit can help and increasing the endorphins in your system can't be a bad thing. Even just walking in a treadmill or going for a walk or something, or walking up and down the stairs. Reminds me I need to get back into my routine.
 
I don't know if this has helped anyone but what about exercise? ...

Everyone tolerates drugs differently, but for my wife, exercise didn't make any difference.
 
I know what she is going through as I have been on those before. One made me way to tired and the other would not let me sleep so my doctor put me on Vimpat. Exercise is completely out of the question with the bad side effects from these meds.

It has worked well for me, as far as side effects I have seen none like the others.

I would ask your Doctor about getting her on Vimpat. I only have to take four pills per day and they are strong enough with not one bad side effect like the others that I have tried.
 
Last edited:
Everyone tolerates drugs differently, but for my wife, exercise didn't make any difference.

Makes sense. I don't know how it'll be when/if I have to go up or change my medications. It's hard to tell whether or not exercise makes a difference.

What I wouldn't give for a strong cup of coffee in the morning! LOL Oh man, I used to do that every morning. Kind of miss it.
 
Back
Top Bottom