Side Effects of Anti-Seizure Medications

The one thing every parent wants when facing an epilepsy diagnosis is answers to all of your questions and concerns. You want to know everything there is to know about the condition and the medications that treat epilepsy. The problem with that, though, is even doctors and scientists don't understand why seizure medications help to prevent seizures. What they do know is that the medications alter brain chemistry and the electrical impulses in the brain.

Brain Chemistry and Mental Health

What doctors also don't always emphasize is that these seizure medications can come with some pretty significant side effects for our little ones. Seizure medications cause the activity between the brain's synapses to slow down. While preventing or lessening seizures, they can also cause your child's cognition and memory to slow down as well. Anti-seizure meds can cause our kids to struggle in school.

The mental health side effects of seizure medications can be scary. When my six-year-old told me that she wanted to kill herself, I was more scared for her than I had ever been. No six-year-old should ever feel that way. Anti-seizure medication can lead to suicidal ideations and issues with anxiety and depression. The medication that helps our children lead healthy, seizure-free lives, can cause our children to suffer from mental health problems. These medications can alter the brain chemistry for patients who take those medications. Mental health issues result from chemical imbalances in the brain. So while we are fortunate enough to have help with our child's seizures, her little mind is dealing with so much more than any child ever should.

My daughter is seven and suffers from issues with impulse control, temper, severe anxiety, sleep problems, and has had some suicidal ideations. Luckily for us, behavioral therapy has been beneficial for her. It hurts our hearts, seeing her suffer from these side effects that we know are in part due to the medication she has to take to control her seizures.  We have chosen not to play around with her medications too much because they are controlling her seizures so well. Our daughter is fortunate in that she may outgrow her childhood absence epilepsy if we can keep her seizures under control. So we take the adverse side effects in the hopes that they are only temporary, and she will be relieved of these side effects when we can wean her off of her seizure medications.

Advocate For Your Child

Not all families are in that same situation. If the adverse side effects of your child's seizure medications impact your child's daily life, you can and should explore other medication options. There are fewer medications for absence seizures than there are for other types of seizures, but you do have options.

-Abby, Guest Blogger