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Click on these links to learn more about Keppra:
Basic Information About Keppra
Keppra's Side Effects
Keppra's Dosage, Discontinuation and
Half-Life Keppra's Effectiveness, Comparison with Other Meds and Ratings
How
Keppra Works in Your Brain Page Buying Keppra
& Keppra PI Sheets Special Effects &
Issues with Keppra
Comments
How Keppra (levetiracetam) Works in Your Brain
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According to the PI sheet, Keppra acts on kainic acid and pilocarpine, which are two chemicals that cause seizures. So it makes them NOT cause seizures. Keppra also inhibits kindling, including kindling in full state, and even reverses it, which is why Keppra is so good for those of us with head injuries. Last thing it says Keppra DOES do in the PI sheet is “selectively prevent hypersynchronization of epileptiform burst firing and propagation of seizure activity.” In English? If you have a partial seizure on Keppra, the drug does its damnedest to keep the abnormal activity from generalizing and keep YOU from flopping like a fish and cracking ribs and all that. The PI sheet says Keppra DOESN’T bind to any of these receptors: GABA, benzodiazepine (yup, they have their own receptor), gyceine, NMDA, or the second messenger systems. As far as their premarketing trials could tell Keppra didn’t touch sodium or T-gated calcium channels either, nor did it “facilitate GABAergic neurotransmission,” but-they do know that it a Petri dish it decreased negative modulators of GABA and glyceine gated currents. Do I know what most of that means? Honestly? About half. Postmarketing studies have shown that in addition to knocking out the crap that makes GABA and glyceine less available (if I’m wrong about what that means, someone, correct me so I look less like a fool, please)-they’re thinkin’ it hits sodium channels after all , and that is why Keppra is effective against absence seizures. And another study suggested Keppra hits calcium channels selectively too, at least in rats. Not only that, but Keppra does the calcium thing in humans, too. And I even found one study saying “Maybe it’s potassium.” ( This time in rats & guinea pigs). The voltage channels and Keppra are being heftily researched right now. And since a lot of this is basically New Mechanism Of Action, there isn’t anything really to compare it to. |

Click on these links to learn more about Keppra:
Basic Information About Keppra
Keppra's Side Effects
Keppra's Dosage, Discontinuation and
Half-Life Keppra's Effectiveness, Comparison with Other Meds and Ratings
How
Keppra Works in Your Brain Page Buying Keppra
& Keppra PI Sheets Special Effects &
Issues with Keppra
Comments

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If you still have unanswered questions about this or other medications,
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Another problem is that you may not get a response even if I wanted to send you
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I've been blacklisted because of the actions of others. Or the software
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Hey, did you find this page all by itself through Google or some other search engine? Great! But to really appreciate the entire site, you need to start here.
Dead tree references:
Physicians' Desk Reference Edition 59 Min Ko and Greg Tallis, Drug Information Specialists, et al. © 2005. Published by Thomson PDR.
Neurology for Psychiatrists Gin S. Malhi, Manjit S. Matharu & Anthony S. Hale. © 2000. Published by Martin Dunitz
Mosby's 2004 Drug Guide David Nissen PharmD, Editor.© 2004. An imprint of Elsevier. The edition we're using isn't listed on Amazon.
End of books used for this article.
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Created Saturday, August 06, 2005
Last updated Monday, May 24, 2010
Content Copyright © 2005 Kassiane S.. Format Copyright 2005 Jerod Poore. All rights reserved.
Almost all of the material on this site is copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Jerod Poore. Except, of course, the PI sheets, those are the property of the drug companies who developed the drugs the sheets are about. And any documents that are written by other people which may be posted to this site will remain the property of the original authors. You cannot reproduce this page or any other material on this site outside of the boundaries of fair use copying without the express permission of the copyright holder. That's usually me, so just ask first. That means if want to print out a few pages to take to your doctor, therapist, counselor, support group, non-understanding family members or something like that - then that's OK to just do. Go for it! Please. As long as you include this copyright notice and the following disclaimer, I'm cool with it.
All rights reserved. No warranty is expressed or implied in this information. Consult one or more doctors and pharmacists before taking, or changing how you take any neurological and/or psychiatric medication. Your mileage may vary. What happened to us won't necessarily happen to you. Nobody on this site is a doctor, therapist, or a pharmacist. We don't portray them either here or on TV. Only doctors can diagnose and treat an illness. Some doctors tend to get pissed off by patients who know too much about medications, so tread lightly when and where appropriate. Diagnosing yourself from a website is like defending yourself in court, you suddenly have a fool for a doctor. Don't be a cyberchondriac, thinking you have every disease you see a website about, or that you'll get every side effect from every medication. Self-prescribing is just as dangerous. All information on this site has been obtained through personal experience, the experiences of my friends, the experiences of people reported on online support groups, and from sources that are referenced throughout the site. Know your sources! As such the information presented here is not a substitute for real medical advice from your real doctor, just a compliment to it. No neurologists, psychiatrists, therapists or pharmacists were harmed in the production of this website. All brand names of the drugs listed in this site are the trademarks of the companies listed after them in the pages about the drugs, even though those companies may or may not have been acquired by other companies who may or may not be listed in this site by the time you read this. Always read the PI sheet that comes with your medications and never ever throw them away. If you didn't get a PI sheet, demand one. Loudly. Crazy Meds is not responsible for the content of sites we provide links to. We like them, or they're paid advertisements, or they're something you should read to make an informed decision about a particular med. Sometimes they're more than one of those things. But what's on those sites is their business, not ours. Very little information about visitors to this site is collected or saved. And from time to time I do look at search terms used to find it in an effort to make the information I present more relevant. Use only as directed. Void where prohibited.
"Everything is true, nothing is permitted." - Jerod Poore
