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Switching from Topamax to Vimpat
Epilepsy & Seizures | Last Active: Sep 27 6:42am | Replies (24)Comment receiving replies
Hi @baa
The fact that your epileptologist proactively communicated with your regular neurologist about the medication change shows how open your epileptologist is to working together with other doctors, even neurologists. This is definitely a positive sign, in my opinion.
My understanding is that an epileptologist is already a neurologist, but with additional specialized training in epilepsy. So, according to my knowledge, when a patient with epilepsy is being treated by an epileptologist, there is no need to see a separate neurologist. HOWEVER, your epileptologist's office might be far away from you (another city) and/or he/she may not be easily accessible for routine needs, asking thus your regular doctor to handle routine prescriptions and lab orders as well as to provide ongoing care to you between specialized visits at Vanderbilt. Would that be your case?
What did your epileptologist at Vanderbilt tell you about this arrangement? Did your epileptologist provide guidance on how he or she prefers to work with your neurologist, or specify which types of decisions he or she wants to handle directly versus what your neurologist can manage?
Chris
Replies to "Hi @baa The fact that your epileptologist proactively communicated with your regular neurologist about the medication..."
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He is several hours away, so I do want to keep my neurologist for my routine visits and also hospitalizations. The specialist didn’t tell me anything specific about what arrangement he wanted - last time we talked which was months ago after he reviewed the 2-hr testing I had done on his campus, he just said let him know if I had another seizure. My fear is that I would lose my neuro here and I don’t want to. I was getting ready to let him know the specialist just messaged about med increase when specialist texted again, just reviewed my records from this last admit 9/9 and wants to increase my lacosimide 100mg a day. (That’s 100 over the recommended daily dose). He also said if I have another seizure he wants to admit me back to Vanderbilt for the in-house unit to stay. So I’m just confused how and when to let my regular neuro know and if he will dump me! I feel like I need to tell neuro about specialist refs OR should I hook the specialist up to my patient portal so they both have access? My neuro saw me in hospital but didn’t want to see me again until next regular visit in November. My followup from hospital is with my PCP tomorrow. Maybe I’m still not thinking straight or just paranoid. I can use your calm voice!