Hi Raigne,
Welcome to the forum! Darlene gave you some great advice seeing an Epileptologist and taking vitamin B12. A few yrs. ago I was taking keppra but the drug didn't work that well for me it caused me sz. to increase. I found the best thing to do to find the correct sz. med is to have a DNA test done and then the Dr. can see your bodies chemical and enzymes and match them up to the correct sz. meds for you with the least side effects.
Often when a woman goes through her change that can either increase or decrease their sz. When I went through my change my sz. decreased and I found that eating any type of nuts or using natural progesterone cream on my skin helped stop the sz.
I've had epilepsy for 42 yrs. and had 2 brain surgeries to help reduce my sz. and it was well worth it. One thing that concerns me is the cyst that you mentioned that may be part of the reason why you are having sz. it may be throwing off to much electrical activity in your brain which in turn will trigger a sz. Also if you are having sz. at night when you are in bed you may be having myoclonic sz. which means the sz. happens when you go to bed or when you first get up in the morning this happened to me a few yrs. ago then I started taking vimpat and that stopped this type of sz. You may want to ask your Dr. to do a sleep study on you to see if you are having sz. in your sleep or if you have sleep apnea or any other sleep disorder that may be triggering the sz. I had to have one done last spring and I was having sz. in my sleep which I didn't even realize I just felt more tired in the morning when I woke up. You are playing in smart keeping track of your sz. by writing them down on a calendar by doing this the Dr. may see a pattern in your sz. as to what time of day/night the sz. happens and what days of the month. My Epileptologist found a pattern with my sz. I always have them the 1st and 3rd week of the month. Be sure to cut back on starch foods and carbs also stay away from anything with nutra sweet in it because it has been proven that these types of foods and chemicals can trigger sz. for many people. I wish you the best of luck and May God Bless You!
Sue

Sue, thank you so much for your sweet reply and the great info!

I've actually been thru "the change" (had to have a complete hysterectomy after the birth of my son 11 years ago) and was just diagnosed with the Epilepsy last week, so I'm hoping the medicine will be tweaked as we go along, but that nothing big will have to be changed.

I intend to take you and Darlene's advice about getting referred to an Epilepsy specialist. I'm think that's exactly what I need because of all the other diseases (6!) I have to deal with.

I can't really do sleep studies because I don't really sleep. I've actually had 4 sleep studies but they never work because I don't sleep enough for them to test anything. I did have a CPAP machine for a few years when I was really overweight but I've lost 130 lbs (gastric bypass surgery) and no longer need it. The problem is my brain won't slow down enough to allow me to get to sleep. Though I must say that the Keppra has actually given me my best sleep in 20 years - even after brain surgery in 2004 I didn't sleep much! I had complete med failure last night as I had taken my Kepra, 2 amitriptyline, 2 morphine and 1 extra strength tylenol and didn't sleep. Then I had to take my pain meds because sleep failed to happen and I'd been without pain meds for 6 hours so I had to take 1 hydrocodone 10/325 and my cyclopbenzaprine muscle relaxer. Still no sleep. It happens. I have times where I walk around like a zombie. Hoping the Keppra helps my body learn to sleep more.

The cyst is so tiny, according to the radiologist who read the report and my neuro who went over it with a fine toothed comb (lol) that it's doing nothing to impare anything (her words). It's just there. Scary for me is that it wasn't in my last MRI on my brain a year ago. I can't have contrast on MRI's because I'm deathly allergic to gadolinium contrast (I nearly died once...that was scary...) and because of that near death, after about 100 MRI's my body now goes into "Fight or Flight" panic attack and I have to have open MRI's. So now I never get good detailed MRI's. Which means they saw this "cyst" on a crappy scan. I asked about a million times if there was a danger with this growing or if it caused the Epilepsy problem and a ton of other questions that I'm too tired to remember right now.

I have been tweaking my diet to eat a bit cleaner (staying away from more carbs and there's no nutra sweet in my diet as I get aspartame headaches). I do use Splenda once in a while, but I've nearly cut that out completely too. I just want the medicine to work and for me to get used to it so that I can drive again in three months and not worry about having a seizure. That may seem like a pipe dream, but I live with 7 diseases now so I'm all about hope.