Quote from a woman who was having recurrent seizures because she had voluntarily stopped her Tegretol
“You know, I actually LIKE the feeling I get when I am about to have a seizure. It is euphoric!”
Guess she is going to remain non-compliant…..
26
Aug
Does she like the loss of bowel and bladder control that occurs post-seizure as well?
As someone who has epilepsy, and has been med non-compliant…
I have myoclonic seizures and absence seizures. I take those any day over the mix they had me on to control it: Keppra, Topamax and at one time, Dilantin after one grand mal.
Seizures are better than severe depression, not being able to eat many of my favorite foods due to taste changes, weight gain, and tiredness I felt all day.
Someone has to ask the begged question: What was her rationale for seeking emergency care?
Yeah!!! what the heck was she doing in the ER?? didn’t she know that that is a place for E MER GEN CIES !!!!???? guess she knew but didn’t care !!! LOL Stacy
Somebody probably called 911. EMS arrived before she was awake enough to refuse. She ends up in the ED.
I used to have one regular patient, who would stop taking her anti-seizure medicine, because it made her feel miserable. Occasionally, she would take all of it at once, because life on seizure medicine was that unbearable.
She didn’t even get the euphoric auras.
I can second the depresion sucks. I have lived with a major depressive disorder since being diagnosed in 2002 and have been on meds since 2005. With every med I’ve been prescribed, there have been side effects to varying degrees, some just a nuisance and others severe enough to interfer in everyday functioning. Continued…
as severely as my depression. There were times when I felt my concerns regarding my side effects and how much they were negatively impacting me weren’t being taken seriously (I gained 42 lbs on Effexor and went from a healthy 120lbs to an overweight 166lbs.) From a patient to a doctor…
we ask you to please not only take the time to listen to our symptoms, but also our concerns about the side effects of the medications we are on and please be willing to work with us to treat and minimize these side effects.
or address our concerns, that is. We know that you aren’t just “pill dispensing machines”, and there’s compassion and concern in there somewhere and that you get burnt out by patients complaining all the time, but please take us seriously when we say, “Hey doc, these side effects are really bothering me”
We switched her to Keppra. Hopefully it will be better for her.
Bipolar with insomnia and ADD here. I’d take mild hypomania any day over the depths of depressive dispair. I’d love to be able to sleep all.night without waking up at 0-dark-thirty, feeling like I picked a fight with the Terminator and lost before getting run over by a cement mixer.
I’ve played Rx roulette for most of my life – “here, try this, see if it works, let me know if you have problems”. Been through almost all SSRIs, SNRIs, multiple mood stabilizers, some of the atypicals, and bunch of stuff for insomnia (but not propofol) and various stimulants this way.
I’m fortunate that my doc works with and listens to me, and accepts that I will research some of the suggestions made at the University of PubMed before I try some of the newer/weirder stuff.