My girlfriend is epileptic, and she keeps having seizures. what should she do?

[Anonymous]

she has right complex partial epilepsy and she keeps having seizures. she takes 200mg of lamictal in the morning and 175mg at night. her seizures don't stop. it seems like once or twice a month she'll have about 10 or more in a day which isn't normal for her kind of epilepsy. but recently hers have been becoming what people basically only know seizures by, convulsing. right complex partial epilepsy doesn't make patients fall down and convulse unless the seizure is completely out of its range for normality, which is very rare. she seen her neurologist just awhile ago because she had to go to the ER from some seizures and what happened after them which wasn't pretty. her neurologist only wants to keep increasing more and more with her two current medication doses. she doesn't want that or else side effects of it just keep getting worse (common ones are depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, insomnia, nausea, and extreme loss of appetite). but he refuses to switch medications no matter what because of whatever reason. when i explained to him what is happening, he won't do anything either. so what does she do? because me and her can tell they're becoming worse. yes she's getting enough sleep, eating healthy, getting the right amount of exercise, keeping her stress down, and so on as best as she can even with the side effects of her medication which are driving her insane. no she's not affected by strobe/flashing lights like many stereotype it to be because again, she doesn't have that kind of epilepsy. any positive help is really appreciated!

also, no she can't just stop taking her medication because then she'll have many seizures because they're that sensitive to doses of medication. and I'm not a doctor so please don't be rude towards me in the comments and act as if i should know what to do because i honestly don't...

she also can't find a new neurologist since she's registered under his name only for a patient and can't just get up and switch doctors if she wants

[Intraluminal]

You need to call your insurance company. Very few insurance companies do not allow you to switch doctors, so the first thing to do is to see what you can do about changing doctors.

The second thing is, you will probably need to go to a larger city to get your girlfriend a complete workup. It's impossible for me to know what kind of workup she needs, because there are so many causes of seizure disorders.

Ultimately, if her seizures continue to worsen and evolve, as it sounds like they are doing, she is at increased risk of death, as well as brain damage from anoxia. If her seizures are intractable, you will need to *consider* neurosurgeon. The BEST possible place is John's Hopkins. They are working on new imaging techniques to differentiate being gray and white matter as well as nerve tracts in the brain.

[Asker]

she does travel to a really large city to see her neurologist because thats where he works. and her seizures are worsening it seems like. yes, every epileptic is at risk for SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in EPilepsy) no matter what. her neurologist has mentioned about seeing a neurosurgeon to remove her brain scar since she was 12. she's now 25 like myself. chances are unlikely that her neurologist will do anything with surgery if he's been mentioning about it for 13 years and not budging with it because telemetry needs to be done beforehand and lots of other tests before the surgery as well which takes time. and we don't live in the US so john's hopkins isn't an option for us

[Intraluminal]

OK. I wasn't too sure how knowledgeable you were about epilepsy. What country do you live in? Could you visit the US for neurosurgery? How does insurance work in your country? I mean, bottom line - intractable seizures will only respond to neurosurgery, and there's an old saying, "Once the air hits your brain, you're never the same," so having the *absolute* best is the most important thing when it comes to brain surgery.

[Asker]

We live in Canada, and probably not because our healthcare is free so it would only make sense to get the surgery (if possible) in our own country where it is way cheaper since it's all covered by health saskatchewan (we live in saskatchewan). And I know. The only issue is that if her neurologist doesn't put a referral in, and doesn't sign off saying to do the surgery even if she agrees, it won't happen

[FrenchClément]

Hi, my little brother had is mentaly retard due to à epilepsy so it's not totaly the same disease...
But the epilepsy isn't know by the doctor since a long time, so some scientist work on this disease looking for new drugs.
I heard a treatment made with cannabis is test... but for the moment i'm afraid their is no miracle solution :(
but science advance fast, lot of help and treatment are create !

[Asker]

ok well epilepsy isn't a disease, it's a neurological disorder. and my girlfriend doesn't want to take cannabis oil or the drug itself because she just doesn't want to (plus it's illegal in every form in our country including for medical use too)...

[FrenchClément]

I know it's Just a bit hard to talk in English for me but you right
Of course I don't say you girlfriend have to take this.. I just want to say some research are make
Anyway good luck to you and ur girlfriend

[Asker]

Oh, sorry. I didn't know you don't speak English as a first language. And thanks

[Greek_goddess_Iris]

200mg and 175mg is very very low medicine dose. I'm on 2000mg Keppra (Levetiracetam) and 700mg Lamictal (Lamotragine). And it comes with lots of size effects. Bad mood, irritability, negative thoughts, and tiredness are most common side effects. But her body will adjust and after 6mo to a year it will calm down. She just needs to also practice methods to calm herself. You can definitely UP her medicine way more.