At the very best, finding the right anti-epilepsy drug is a crap shoot. There’s always the hope that this one will do it.
Or maybe adjunct therapy will work. Or, sigh, the side-effects derail you and you’re on to the next.
Is asking for seizure control too much to ask?
For many of us, monotherapy just doesn’t work.
However adjunct therapy has its dangers.
For example, some seizure medicines can lower or raise the levels of other types of medicines in your blood.
Some combinations cause the levels of both medications to fall.
Some cause one level to fall and one level to rise.
And some cause unpredictable side-effects.
So I hunkered down to discover the unhappy marriages between anti-seizure meds.
To say that lack of memory is a major worry for those of us with epilepsy is hardly a surprise.
In fact, it’s the number one concern.
We are in a mental health crisis in this community. And not enough is being done to avert it.
According to a peer-reviewed journal article from Epilepsy and Behavior, statistics concluded that people with epilepsy are 22 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
Today, things are constantly changing.
Especially when it comes to epilepsy medications and resources.
Some companies have expanded their programs or even offer new ones.
Others have cut their funds, and sadly others have ceased to exist.
Here’s a new and comprehensive list…
To say that lack of memory is a major worry for those of us with epilepsy is hardly a surprise.
In fact, it’s the number one concern.
Simply put, memory is our brain’s ability to store information and find it again later.
Chemical and electrical changes happen in your brain when new memories are made.
It’s a natural brain process that requires continuing attention and recording by parts of your brain.
Seizures interfere with your memory by interfering with attention or input of information.
Confusion often follows a seizure, and during this foggy time, new memory traces aren’t being laid down in the brain.
Years ago, women who had epilepsy were often discouraged from getting pregnant. Today, that’s no longer the case.
Thanks to early and regular prenatal care, more than 90 percent of pregnant women who have epilepsy deliver healthy babies, according to the Epilepsy Foundation.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center, published the results of a collaboration with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research study, which found that zinc plays a key role in signal transmission between neurons in the hippocampus — a zinc enriched region of the brain responsible for learning and memory — and where disrupted communication may contribute to epilepsy.