Hi, Darlene:

Quote: "How long have you been taking Keppra?" I have been taking this medication since May 2009. The dosage was slowly increased. Today, I am taking Keppra 500 mg (three tablets twice daily). The night time dosage is taken with another epilepsy medication, Klonopin 2 mg: one tablet daily.

I often have trouble falling asleep. Once I am asleep, I have trouble staying asleep. If I wake up during the night because of noise or other reasons, I will have a very hard time falling asleep again. If I wake up at about 3 AM or after, I am almost sure I will not be able to fall aslep and stay asleep again.

I sleep on my left or right side (I change sides regularly), with my head on a little pillow. I sometimes sleep on my back, but I do not feel comfortable doing so. I absolutely cannot sleep on my front side because of my RSD knee pain, even if I put pillows under my knees.

In the morning, I discover, every day, that my pillow is really wet because I drooled a lot on my pillow during the night.

My strong tiredness (from the time I wake up to the time I fall asleep) almost always comes with strong migraine headaches. I also feel some low key fever.

I need some sleep medication but, of course (lucky me! ), no doctor will prescribe this type of medication for me. I have the feeling doctors think sleep medications are bad, just like guns or nuclear bombs.

So how am I supposed to fall asleep?

I cannot put on some soft music or music with the noise of nature in the bedroon in which I sleep because it bothers my mother, who has been sleeping in my bedroom for decades because she does not get along with my father.

Her waking up half a dozen times during the night to go and pee also bothers me, but what I hear is something like "It is not your house. You can move out." With the very little money I earn, I cannot afford to pay rent. Maybe I should move out and live with the homeless; I will sleep better on the streets.

Why can my brother have his own room and not me? It is well known that French people (my father is French) and Chinese people (my mother is Chinese) prefer boys. My brother gets everything he wants, even though he earns a lot more money than me.

Even the cats are treated better than I am. I love the cats that are mine, but is that a valid reason to mistreat me? I am not a demon and I strongly believe I have as much value as my brother.

Thanks so much for your information.