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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

 

 

Keppra's (levetiracetam) Special Effects & Issues

 

Keppra's Issues: First and foremost, if you are taking Keppra for epilepsy you need to read the page on SUDEP and status epilepticus.  I know, it is scary and nothing you want to think about, but you need to know. SUDEP and status aren’t in the PI sheet, but that doesn’t mean they cannot happen while you are on the med. OK. End soapbox. I’ve had too many scares myself to let that one pass.

Keppra's Psychiatric Effects: Keppra can do weird things to your mood. It can make you depressed. Keppra can make you DAMN depressed. If this happens, IT ISN’T YOU. IT’S THE MEDS.

Another thing Keppra is known for is making people angry. Really angry. My friend Lyssie  and I have a totally-talking-out-our-asses theory on this one. Keppra actually makes me happy, and it made her happy at first. It’s when it is time for another dose that she got angry. However as the world’s slowest metabolizer, I had a steady level until I had to come off suddenly, when I became bitch queen of the universe. So our totally uneducated theory is that it isn’t Keppra, but the lack of Keppra, making people mean. It’s only got a 6-8 hour half life, after all, for average folk (a.k.a. non-smoking white males Of A Certain Age). If you are not in this group for any reason, you might be clearing Keppra faster than average even though it has few to no known drug interactions, and three times a day dosing might solve the anger problem. Hey, it’s worth a shot as long as you aren’t going on multicide sprees. And if it works, let me know, I’m full of scientific curiosity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rarest, and scariest, psychiatric effect that Keppra can have is hallucinations. Usually if you make it through the first week, you’re safe, but the woman on the first page with the ghostly friend had been taking Keppra over a year when she started getting visits.

Dekindling: Keppra is a dekindler. What does this mean? They think it fixes damaged areas in the brain, or at least sets up a damn good detour. So if you had a whack on the head, and now have seizures, and are now on Keppra, that’s why. Plus, unlike other anticonvulsants, it won’t make you stupid, and from my experience with head injuries, THOSE make you feel dumb enough.

Check for Drug-Drug Interactions

 

 

 

 

 



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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Keppra in the News

Epilepsy in the News

Bipolar Disorder in the News

 

 

 

Take care of yourself, and keep taking your crazy meds!

 

Jerod

 

If you still have unanswered questions about this or other medications, including which one is, or combination of meds are the best for you, your best bet is to ask on Crazy Meds Talk.  Better yet, if you want to let the world know how they worked out for you and want to help out others in their quest for the correct meds, join the party.
If you 
want to discuss your issues, I suggest checking out one of the various support groups online.  
Otherwise, if you're letting me know about how much you like or hate the site, or  need to let me know about medication effects in private, then just drop a note to jerod23 at gmail dot com  Honestly, I usually don't have a lot of time to answer e-mail these days.  The snide autoresponse message that may or may not hit your mailbox is going to tell you the same thing.
Another problem is that you may not get a response even if I wanted to send you one.  You see, so many dickweeds with malicious intents and too much time on their hands have appropriated the crazymeds.org domain name to use for their spam, viruses and the like.  Subsequently some lazy-ass e-mail protection software authors just go by the domain name, and not the IP address.  So I've been blacklisted because of the actions of others.  Or the software just doesn't like the domain name because of the "crazy" and/or "meds."  Or your question about a particular medication will set off spam flags.  So the e-mail just wouldn't go through regardless.  Sorry.

 

 

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