lamictal,klonopin, surgery

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I my name is Jonna and my daughter Cassandra (12) has post encephalitis

seizures. I have been reading and occasionally posting on this site for 2 months

since we are getting a second opinion for the diet. I have a few questions

though. We are currently on our 6th med. with no luck. Cassandra has complex

partial seizures. If we add klonopin (7th med) they become absence.Is this

commen for any of your children to change seizure types when new meds are

given/taken away? Also she was on versed 2 years ago in the hospital and the

wean was a bad one. Will the klonopin wean be similiar? We are also in the

process of taking away lamictal since it does not help with breakthrough

seizures (this is why it was added) we take away 12.5 mg. a week. One last

question and sorry to ramble is has anybody had a surgical evalution? It has

been mentioned to us and the keto dr. is going to do one. I heard stats for the

surgery (temporal lobe ) are around 60-75%. Anybody else hear any figures or

know any success/failure stories. It would be much appreciated. Thanks for

listening.

JOnna Mom to cassandra

[Guest guest]

Hi Jonna, below in ****s...

>We are currently on our 6th med. with no luck. Cassandra has complex

partial seizures. If we add klonopin (7th med) they become absence.

** I don't know of benzodiazepines (klonipin is one) having a reputation

for inducing absences in particular, (though nothing with this class of meds

would surprise me...) but I do know that depakote in combination with

benzodoazepines can.

>Is this commen for any of your children to change seizure types when new

meds are given/taken away?

**Er, yep - unfortunately definitely so.

>Also she was on versed 2 years ago in the hospital and the wean was a bad

one. Will the klonopin wean be similiar?

**Possibly so, yes. Versed (or medazolam) is another benzodiazepine, all

of these meds are well known for rocky withdrawals due to their v addictive

nature. If possible, these sorts of meds should be weaned slowly, as when

they are reduced, the GABA levels in the brain fall, meaning temporary

states of neuro excitability. Once the brain starts 'getting used to' the

lower levels of artificial GABA not being being supplemented as much, the

compensatory mechanism switches off, and it restarts making it's own natural

GABA as it was 'pre-benzo'. Then things stabilise for a while, then another

reduction is done, GABA falls again, and so on. So if you go too quickly

with reducing, the GABA levels don't have a chance to stabilise in between,

and even more neuro-excitabilty results, meaning more potential for

seizures.

>We are also in the process of taking away lamictal since it does not help

with breakthrough seizures (this is why it was added) we take away 12.5 mg.

a week.

**Although lamictal works in a different way to the benzodiazepines, there

is still potential for withdrawal seizures, and like all AEDs, it should be

weaned fairly slowly too, if possible. We found that a decremental weaning

process worked better than taking a set amount off per week. This is because

12.5 mgs off say a 100 mg a day dose may not really be that impacting, but

once down to say 50 mgs, it is a bigger chunk to take away. 's worst

withdrawal reaction from lamictal from memory, used to come between day 3

and 5. As with the reduction amounts, we were able to wean it quicker when

at the higher levels, but once the dose got down lower, we had to slow down

to 2-wekly reductions instead, as the fallout started getting more

prolonged.

>One last question and sorry to ramble is has anybody had a surgical

evalution? It has been mentioned to us and the keto dr. is going to do one.

I heard stats for the surgery (temporal lobe ) are around 60-75%. Anybody

else hear any figures or know any success/failure stories. It would be much

appreciated. Thanks for listening.

**Can't help here sorry, 's seizures are generalised, so surgery was

never an option for us.

> JOnna Mom to cassandra

**