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Epilepsy Treatments: Keeping Seizures Under Control

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Switching Epilepsy Medications


Before you ask your doctor if your medication should be switched, make sure you are taking your current medication exactly as prescribed. Missing doses, splitting pills, or not following instructions to the letter could affect your control and the side effects you experience. If you are already complying with your doctor’s instructions, but still are having breakthrough seizures, talk to your neurologist or epileptologist (specialists who are experts in treating epilepsy). Your doctor will evaluate whether you should switch medications.

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Eventually, up to 70% of people with epilepsy become seizure-free with minimal side effects while taking epilepsy drugs. But switching epilepsy medications takes time and patience. Finding the right epilepsy drug for you can require equal parts art and science -- and sometimes a bit of luck.

Switching Epilepsy Medications: A Small Leap of Faith

Even the best doctors don't know which epilepsy drug will work best in any given person.

When managing epilepsy, doctors take a snapshot of your epilepsy profile: your type of seizures, your age and gender, other medical conditions, medicines you're on or may be on later, your time of life, and epilepsy drugs you've tried in the past.

Based on that information, your doctor may narrow down the field to a few epilepsy drugs to try. But after that, it's an educated leap of faith, experts tell WebMD.


Switching Medications for Epilepsy: How It's Done

What does the process of switching epilepsy medications involve? The events will be different for each person. Experts agree, though, that success depends on a good partnership between you and your doctor. Switching medications may include these steps:

1. Choose a new drug. Your doctor will work closely with you to decide on the next best epilepsy drug worth trying. That includes a detailed discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the medicine and its likely side effects, as well as rare but potentially serious effects. If you're a young woman, now is the time to discuss any plans for pregnancy. Some medications interact with birth control pills.  And women of childbearing age who take seizure medications should also take daily folate supplements. The more you're involved in the process of choosing your epilepsy drug, the better the chances for long-term success.

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