Going off of depakote

I've been on depakote for 18 years. I keep feeling like it's slowing me down in my conversations and making connections with certain things. I haven't had a seizure for a little over 10 years. I am taking 500 mg daily.

I was told that going off of the medicine, even if I don't have epilepsy anymore, could cause a seizure just because my brain is so used to it.

I have myoclonic tonic seizures in the morning and then if I have those later on I have a grand mal. I was thinking of just lowering my dose, but it's already pretty low.

Any suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by Carl B Ross on December 17, 2010 at 12:21am

I went off of depakote in august and slowly upping the lamictal. I can definitely relate to the difficulty having conversations, I was diagnosed with adhd while on 2000 mg of the depakote, and prescribed Adderall. when I switched to lamictal I found quite by accident the adderall was affecting the lamictal, I ran out of adderall and the auras got a lot better. also the cloudiness I've been a lot more clear headed, can form coherant sentences without huge pauses. the withdrawal from depakote sucks, but I was on a very high dose. Oddly, I was contemplating taking down the depakote when I first saw my neuro, but then I began having seizures again, then i went in for 10days for veeg, I went through the withdrawal and had no seizures. they put me back on a partial dose of depakote and the side effects came back with a vengeance. half the dose but twice the side effects and seizures to boot. I went down to a quarter dose as I slowly brought up the lamictal, it's been rough and worked for the most part, but now I'm on a high dose of that and once again having seizures. I guess my overall point is that it will catch you when you least expect it at least for me it did, and the best that came of it was I got rid of a lot of the side effects, but now I'm probably going to need another med to supplement the lamictal, and who knows what side effects that will bring. I hope all goes well for you. Those side effects are a beast