This update is a little late.
I had my spring "appointment" on March 26, but it was over the phone instead of in person, because of Covid.
For the past year and a half, we have been playing with the dosages of Topiramate and Lacosamide, moving each one up and down in the hopes that that would do the trick. Not only has it not worked, but in the most recent six month period I was having more episodes.
On top of that, the increase to the max dose (400mg) of Topiramate resulted in some pretty heavy depression. I wasn't sure at first what was causing it because I'd never had trouble with the Topiramate at the lower doses, but I couldn't pinpoint another cause. The only other time I had felt that terrible was when I was on the higher doses of Keppra. So it had to be the increased dose of Topiramate.
So I told the neuro that not only was the current mix not working for my partials but the increased Topiramate was making me depressed, and of course he said that that was not going to work! So we reduced the Topiramate back to a dose that is ok for me. And then it was time to introduce a third med. Yay.
The reason for adding a third med instead of changing them altogether is that each of these meds comes from a different class, and they all work on the brain in different ways. Or so I'm told. To be honest I don't know enough about how they operate, but the idea is that if I am handling the ones I'm on, I'll stay on those ones because they are doing good things, and then add one that is going to do more good things in a different way, and hopefully between all three of them I can get it all under control. Anyway....
Introducing: Clobazam.
This one is a "benzo", and it's one of the "bad" ones that in theory you don't want to be on long-term. They can be addictive and not so great for you in the long run. It's actually a tranquilizer. But my dose is very low (just 5mg once a day, at night time).
And lo and behold.... I have not had ANY symptoms since starting it. Five weeks and counting. My record is about three months, so I'm not getting too excited yet. We'll see....
