I have had a siezure for a little over a year now and have yet to find a medication that works with my nuerologist. I think he is an idiot,. Anyway I get petit mal seizures, and daily headaches on the left side dof my head. (No consistancy between the two. I have been on dilantin, depakote, lamictal, zonisamide, and a bunch of other crap that will work for like one month till my body gets used to it then I will go into regular seizures again....Any suggestions to suggest to him or rather the recommendation of a good nuero in Detroit, MI?

Have you eliminated aspartame and MSG from your diet? It's very complicated because most processed foods contain hidden forms of MSG. But you can start by not drinking diet soda (just a guess). Aspartic acid and glutamic acid are amino acids in most food - but the levels vary. Check out http://msgmyth.com/ for more info.

Could I ask if you're male or female and how old you are? I'm really not just being nosy....it can make a difference.

I'm not a doctor or nurse or anything but I sure do think it's important to try to take all the epilepsy drugs longer than one month (unless they have bad side effects) ... they all can take up to 6 weeks to gain strength and really start working.

And IMHO it's even more important that you have an EEG, CT scan, things like that .... all the testing possible to try to determine WHY you started having seizures.

Best wishes .... let us know how things are going.

I agree with Peppermint in the fact that meds-- especially seizure meds, often take longer than one month to work AND some meds ( such as Lamictal ) can take much longer than a month or even 6 weeks for a person to titrate onto them---much less see signifigant results. It took me 5.5 months to titrate onto Lamictal; about 6 weeks to reach my initial goal dose of Keppra (and after we stayed there for about 6 weeks, we decided to double my dose over a period of another 6 weeks), 3 weeks to titrate up onto Neurontin and well, I think you get the picture (and those are just my current meds--I've had E for 14 years and have been on variety more ). That is not to say you won't be able to see some benefits from the medication before you hit your target dose, but you might not be able to see full benefit.....

So, Seeing that you have already been on so many meds considering the fact that you have only been diagnosed for a year is a bit much. To further explain that, with meds you will often see some initial side effects that will pass with time--- and "time" meaning up to several weeks or longer. It can also take a while to figure out exactly what dose is best too.....

My opinion in that regard is that you probably need to give the meds some longer time to see the most benefits with the least amount of side effects.

I think another one of the things Peppermint was trying to get at in her question about age/gender, is that for some women (not all, but some), their seizures tend to increase (or perhaps its the only time they occur) at certain points in there cycle --- its commonly known as catamenial seizures. Different doctors have different strategies for dealing with this....

Keep you chin up-- so much of epilepsy and treatment is trial and error and it may take more than one medication or type of treatment (I am currently on a combination of 2 seizure meds and then another med for nerve pain that is also used as a seizure med). I know this is frustrating-- but you can do this and get through things .

Hang in there !
L2L

Thank you love2laugh ....

There were times when I was on THREE AEDs at one time and now I'm still taking Trileptal and and Topamax together.

Let's hope we hear from epiphanyd very soon.

In combination with other suggestions here, is your neuro checking the med levels? It may be too low, which is why they're not working. I also think a month is too short (excluding bad reactions). I think checking levels and the idea of raising or lowering dosage (too much may do this, too) should be done.

Hang in there!!

PS: Trying a lot of meds (we typically call it the "Labrat Phase") is pretty normal and most of us have gone through it.
PSS: Welcome!!

I have been on every med on the market before my first brain surgery. Then I had the brain surgery, the right temporal lobectomy. Since the surgery didn't even stop the seizures, my neuro told me that I have SEVERE epilepsy. My seizures are also cause by scar tissue on left temporal lobe. But everytime I'd start a new med, I'd go 2 to 4 weeks seizure free, and then they'd start up again. Now I'm in the research study for the RNS.

I have had seizures for over 35 yrs & have taken all the meds. One worked, with my tonic-clonics but not my complex partials. Like others have said, you should try them for longer than one month.

I to have had seizures all my45 YEARS OF Life,and the Doctors could never help me as well ,there are some ppl that will never take well to medications that is a fact,I have tryed most kinds of seizure control medications there is out there but to no help they are to me that is just me thou,no they are right do give it some time in between times when taking a new drug it takes a while for a drug to go all thru your body sometime,and inbetween times the doctor has to do the cbc smack blood work to make sure that you are not toxic to the drug he has percribed so it will all take time The best of luck to you and every one out there.
TAKE CARE ALL HAPPY TRAILS TO ALL

Sorry you're having such trouble, but I have been there too as most on this board either have or will have. I think you called your doc a neuro? Seems like someone would have mentioned this already and maybe I missed it, but if he/she is a general neurologist, that is one of the main problems. Please go to a Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at a major medical center where the docs are Epileptologists who have additional training specializing in epilepsy. That s all they treat and most do a good job. It took 35 years for me to get to one, but I did not have this information that you now have. Epilepsy deserves a great deal more respect that it will ever get from a general neuro who will only play with the meds while it is your quality of life that is being affected. We too deserve good care and the same respect. The statistics are, once one med fails, there is less than a 15% chance that any meds will stop them. I am one of those people. There are other things available that do work, but your general neuro will not tell you about them because theyare outside the scope of his practice and he will have to admit he failed to strop your seizures if he has to refer. This is not about him. My docs hung on to me too, but it was my quality of life that took a real beating. You have the opportunity and knowledge now to make that be different. You have to do it as i did. Tell your primary care doc to refer you to a patient oriented Comprehensive Epilesy Center. Do not ask or mention it to the general neuro. Heill not like it but this is not about him. It is about you and your life. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of my surgery I had in 1998 for my epilepsy. I have not lost consciousness since, and I am now in graduate school. Good luck. Tattoo