Hi Mark,
Welcome to the forum I've had right TLE for 37 yrs. now and I've been on Trileptal which is very similar to Tegretol. Everyone is different but I found that the generic form didn't work as well for me as the brand name and my pharmacist told me that he felt the brand name was much stronger than the generic brain. One thing I will tell you that's very important and that is don't eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice while taking trileptal because the enzymes in the fruit can mess up the drug and lead to seizures. Also if you ever need to get a antibiotic for anything be very careful because some antibiotics can make trileptal become toxic and that's no fun. My family Dr. gave me an antibiotic and it caused the Trileptal to become so toxic I couldn't even stand up on my own and I was down in bed four days. I wish you the best of luck and May God Bless You!

Sue