Side Effects

I know that I just wrote about changing the dosage of my medication, but now I'm switching to a completely new medication. Let me explain why.

Remember last summer when I had such bad eczema? That prompted me to change everything in my house to hypoallergenic products: every soap, lotion, shampoo, detergent, and solution was now perfume- and dye-free. With those changes in place, the eczema went away and hasn’t come back.

Around the same time, I started having problems with my contacts. I'd already been using a hypoallergenic cleaning solution for years, but I switched to a preservative-free saline for rinsing, and that seemed to alleviate the problem… at least for a while. Around late January, even with the changes I made, I could only wear my contacts for about four (maybe six) hours before they'd get so itchy that I couldn't stand it anymore. In March, I saw an ophthalmologist who said that my eyes were showing clear signs of experiencing an allergic reaction. I told him all of the changes that I had made and he said that I was taking all of the right steps and gave me some steroidal eye drops to reduce the reaction. I used the drops for a week straight before attempting to wear my contacts again. The next time I wore them, I was able to go the whole day without discomfort, but only for one day. On day two, I was back to being itchy to the point of not being able to keep my eyes open. Since then, I only wear my contacts for short periods.

Even more worrying, since December, I've had something like five sinus infections. I've been on so many rounds of antibiotics that I'm a little worried that I'm going to become resistant. I've also missed four days of work this year. That may not seem like a lot, but I've gotten teased from my coworkers because I never take any time off. Other than for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I just keep to my normal schedule, so taking that many sick days in such a short period was shocking. It was also troubling because I went from being healthy to being unable to exercise on a regular basis, something that I'd come to rely on to keep me sane.

Because of the problems that I had with my contacts, when I got my annual bonus this year, I looked into getting Lasik surgery and even had consultations at two separate locations. I talked about everything with Leah and we decided that I should wait until after the wedding before we plan something so expensive, though I decided to pray about it just to be sure. I felt like I hadn't explored all of my options and I thought that I should look at the side effects of my epilepsy medication.

So I did.

What are the major side effects? Allergic reactions (including rashes) and flu-like symptoms. I thought that match up too well with what I was going through to simply be a coincidence. I called my neurologist about my discovery and she was not convinced. To be fair, I hadn't told her about all of these problems before because I didn't think it was related to my medication. Plus, the fact that I had been on the new medication for a while before the side effects showed up. So she was understandably reluctant to prescribe a new medication, but I cajoled her into trying what is now my third medication.

(Quick aside: I've been referring to my medications on this blog by their generic names because I like avoiding proprietary eponyms, like calling any kind of lip balm Chapstick or any brand of tissue Kleenex. But whenever I tell doctors or nurses about what medications I'm taking, they ask for me to clarify with the medication brand name. So from now on, I'll refer to my medications by the names everyone recognizes. Levetiracetam, the first medication I took, is Keppra; oxcarbazepine, my last medication, is Trileptal; and divalproex sodium, my new medication, is Depakote.)

Because of how anti-convulsants work, I have to gradually start the Depakote as I gradually stop the Trileptal or risk what the warning labels call "non-stop seizures." For this first week, I'm going back to my old Trileptal routine of one dose in the morning and one in the evening while adding one dose of Depakote in the morning. Next week it'll switch, with two doses of Depakote and one dose of Trileptal in the evening. In two weeks, I'll maintain the two doses of Depakote and reduce my intake of Trileptal to once every other day. After that, I'll stop taking Trileptal completely.

Depakote has its own list of side effects which I'll be on the lookout for. Most prominently is the risk of liver damage, which was also a risk with Trileptal. That means quarterly blood tests to make sure that the medicine that keeps me from seizing doesn't also kill me. The other most common side effects are headaches, nausea, drowsiness, dizziness, vomiting, stomach pain, and (ironically) tremors. There may be other side effects that I'll encounter from the Trileptal and the Depakote interacting, but those will be short lived. So far, I was nauseated for less than ten minutes when I first took the Depakote yesterday, but that was it. I don't want to have the same problem as before where I didn’t connect my ailments to my medication, so any time I have any medical problem, I'm going to check it against the list of side effects.

Managing my epilepsy has not been easy, and I'm still encountering new challenges, but I'm living with it and not letting it get in the way of the rest of my life. Anyone else think I should be on a motivational poster?