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← Return to Successful Depakote weaning
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My 22 yr old son has been on depakote for about 7 yrs. His liver enzymes are high 75 should be max 30… doc not worried but I am. He does have slight tremor and also it has cognitively affected him and really slowed his processing. We are trying to add lamictal in hopes of decreasing depakote … no a rash (not Stevens johnson. Thank God… neurologist not worried but again I am… cuz it has to be lamictal caused). L-carnitine a ped neurologist recommended for liver health… I begged to add it back. I try to get him to take magnesium and omega 3 for brain health… neurologist recommends nothing but pharmaceuticals…. So frustrating. No one is concerned about his whole body health but me. And when I mention sleeps so hard he can’t wake up they send us to a sleep doc who wants to add more scary drugs. And when his mood is low … add antidepressants… and when school is difficult add methylphenidate to focus …. Well all these drugs have scary side effects including suicidal thoughts …. Docs are all about more and more meds… no one knows how all these things affect a person. Also, neurologist did not care that my college student on all of this stuff was also vaping nicotine and drinking alcohol. His liver 🤦♀️🤦♀️. God bless you and your son.
Replies to "My 22 yr old son has been on depakote for about 7 yrs. His liver enzymes..."
@tlb101175, a very Good Morning
I can understand much your feelings, words and the experience you have been through with your son, as I went through a similar experience with the AEDs I have tried. I had so many side-effects, all of you have mentioned in your post and some others, affecting much my whole life. But thankfully, I am well again since I have been treated by an epileptologist and on CBD (from medical cannabis) and explored other alternative treatments. So, do have hope!!!
I understand that your son is seeing a neurologist. Please do consider seeing an epileptologist, that has made a great difference in my epilepsy treatment.
The neurologist I was seeing in 2019 also recommended seeing a sleep doctor, who gave me more drugs. The sleep deprivation I was having was due to the AED I was taking and adding more drugs has not helped me. The sleep doctor gave me Alprazolam and though I could sleep, I had terrible nights of sleep with so many nightmares. After some time, Alprazolam stopped working (the body got used to it) and the doctor wanted to increase the dosage. Thankfully, I did not follow the sleep doctor's recommendation and changed doctors. The new doctor, still a neurologist at that time, has weaned me off the Alprazolam little by little, as it could result in more seizures. To have a night of better sleep, I started with yoga nidra practices, which have helped me much. I still continue with it, daily. This year, I have been diagnosed with SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), most probably caused by the last AED I have taken.
I do very much agree that many doctors nowadays are not concerned with the whole body's health and that many of them are more about more and more medication. This is very well shown in the movie with Meryl Streep "First do no harm", available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY9ZMGK5Hbs
Seeing an integrative medicine doctor could be an option. Integrative medicine combines conventional medicine and complementary therapies from very ancient medicines such as acupuncture, ayurveda and Chinese medicines. Different from conventional medicine, it treats the patient as a whole and not just his or her illness. Here is more information on it, in case you are interested: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21683-integrative-medicine. I got to know integrative medicine by reading the book of Dr. Cynthia Li (Brave New Medicine). With such an approach, I took gluten out of my meals and my seizures were reduced by 60%, without all the terrible the side-effects of the AEDs I have taken. Dr. Cynthia Li was a conventional doctor and became an integrative medicine doctor because of her hard journey in the treatment of her autoimmune disease. Besides her book telling us about her journey, there are many videos on YouTube. One of them that I like much is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZrY2vSbws&t=136s.
God bless you and your son!
Chris/Santosha
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Yes, I completely get where you are coming from. My son is very negative and always down on himself. He has all the same issues your son has except he refuses to take any more medications besides the depakote. The only positive side that we have seen with the drug is that it is a mood stabilizer which seems to keep him more calm in certain situations. Although he is not in college he does live on his own and does all the things a 22 year old does as well. Luckily he stopped the vapping a year ago because he finally realized it is what was making him sick to the stomach every morning. It is so hard to distinguish between the medicine and just being a normal kid!! God bless you both as well:)