Originally Posted by Porkette

Hi Cassie,

Welcome to the forum! I'm sorry to hear that finace is having seizures that are lasting so long. I started having absence seizures when I was 10 yrs. old and they led to complex partial seizures. What you are describing sounds like absence status seizures and that means the seizure is lasting much longer than it should and there's a possibility that it can be causing more brain damage. If a person has a seizure of any type and it lasts for 15 min. or longer it is known as a status seizure. A few yrs. ago when I was put on neurontin it caused me to have absence status seizures where I would be out of it for 30 min. to 3 hrs. this caused me to have more brain damage.
I have taken tegretol and keppra and I found that the keppra increased my seizures. Your fiance should get of the anti depresent because it's going to mess up his tegretol and keppra and he needs to understand that depression is part of epilepsy and his seizure meds. I've found taking vitamin B12 1000 mcg. once a day a big help. to reduce my seizures.

Stress and lack of sleep are the 2 main things that can trigger seizures for a person because the stress effects the hormones which in turn will cause seizures. I've had many e.e.g's done along with cat scans, MRI's , Spect scans, angiograms, and Pet scans and the Drs. only found I had to many brain cells on the right temporal lobe but when I had surgery done to reduce my seizures they found more brain damage that was never shown on any of the tests because it was to deep in my brain and this could be the reason why the Dr. isn't getting the detail of what's going on with your fiance brain. If you haven't started get a calendar and keep track of all the seizures by writing down what time the seizure happened along with a description of the seizure. Take note if your fiance is sick with a cold or virus because that can always trigger more seizures and also take note of the weather and if there's a low pressure in the weather sometimes a person can have seizures when there's a low pressure. My best advice to you is to have your fiance go to an Epilepsy Center and see a Epileptologist (Dr. specializing in epilepsy) I've gotten the most help from an Epileptologist and I'm on fewer meds. I also found out to stay away from both nutra sweet and cell phones because both of these can cause more electrical activity in the brain and trigger seizures for some people.
I wish you and your fiance only the best of luck and don't give up on the relationship. I've been married for 24 yrs. now and my husband knew I had epilepsy before we got married.
Wishing the both of you the best of luck and May God Bless You Both!

Sue