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US Brand Name:Keppra
The link here will take you to the official website of the drug.
Generic Name: levetiracetam
Other Forms: Grape flavored suspension. (The one report we have is
that the grape flavored suspension tastes like ass.)
Intravenous injection - but only as a temporary way to deal with those days when
you can't swallow one of those big-ass pills.
What is Keppra: Keppra is an
Anticonvulsant.Also know as an anti-epileptic drug (AED) and mood
stabilizer.
Read the section on this link for common effects and side effects for the entire
class.
What are Keppra's FDA Approved Uses: Keppra is approved as adjunctive therapy
(used with one or more other anticonvulsants) for partial onset epilepsy in adults
and children over 4 years. Approved November, 1999. Partial seizures
include:
Simple partial seizures - you're still awake (more or less),
with symptoms such as one or two limbs spazzing out or wacky visual
or other sensory distortions. Think Alice in Wonderland, as
Lewis Carroll must have had some serious
temporal lobe
issues. The fist link will take you to a better explanation.
For a really detailed explanation of what a simple partial seizure
is, click here.
Complex partial seziures - the people around you think you're
just acting out to get attention. In reality you have no
control over what's happening. Again, click there for the
basics, click
here for what neurologists think about this type of seizure.
Keppra is also approved to treat
myoclonic seizures (E.g. an arm shoots out, your latté
covers someone in line at the coffee shop, and you try to explain how it
was an accident and how you'll cover the dry cleaning bill.) in adults
and children. This includes the wacky juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. Again officially it must be taken with one or more
other anticonvulsants.
Keppra's Off-Label Uses: Boy do we have off
label uses!
and the dreaded
Lennox-Gastaut
syndrome. With a 50% to 100% reduction of certain seizure types along
with an increase in the kids' alertness. Talk about win-win!
For bipolar disorder Keppra's best used to deal with the most extreme,
out-of-control manias you have around. Either as an
add-on medication, or
all by itself. One of Keppra's best features is that if you stop
taking it, either because you were crazy and thought you were cured, or because
your manias are seasonal and you don't need a potent anti-manic certain times of
the year,
it tends to work just as well if you stop it and restart it.
Autism.
Good by itself for mood stability and the ADD/ADHD related symptoms of
inattention, hyperkinesis, and impulsivity. Better as an add-on for
aggression.
Cons:A lot of the side effects it DOES have are psychiatric. Reports
from the field (a.k.a. anecdotal evidence) suggest the most common are
the deep, sometimes suicidal depression. Another favorite is the Keppra rage,
although this one seems to be overhyped.
Far less frequent, but still reported, are hallucinations - one woman I know with epilepsy had deep
philosophical conversations with a ghost every night. And there's
this case report of a kid getting a bit psychotic on Keppra. Those kind of suck-especially when no one bothers to warn you that they might happen.
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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
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