I am currently taking 3,000 mgs of keppra (namebrand) and 200 mgs of zonimaside (generic zonegran - says W 990 on it) daily for complex partial seizures. Due to allergies and adverse side effects, I have no other medication options available, even though I'm still having seizures daily, including photosensitive seizures. I only need to miss a dose of keppra by 45 minutes to get a CP.

I was supposed to take 400 mgs of zonimaside, but when I went up to 300 mgs, I became extremely irritible, had an increase and seizure, and experienced explosive rage at the slightest provocation. It seems I've never quite gotten back to normal, even though I made a dramatic improvement when I originally went to 200 mgs. Now I've been experiencing anorexia for a few months now - I'm rarely hungry, and when I am, its so subtle I have to remind myself not to ignore that feeling. At best I can eat one small meal a day when I make an effort to eat. It doesn't bother me to not eat all though I try to avoid that and stick to a diet similar to the modified atkins one.

However, every day I have a bowel movement. When I have eaten nothing, it is black. When I have eaten a little is green. If I have eaten meat, it is the correct color, but I get diarhea that I can't hold in without warning. If I eat other things, it is more orangish in color. I'm wondering if the zonimaside can be responsible for this. I have experienced anxiety and a depression (not to the point of needing medication) as a result of being a healthy, happy young adult on the verge of fulfilling my dreams to being someone who can't go to the grocery store alone pretty much overnight last year, and having little progress made to change that.

My neurologist was very unhelpful and unwilling to listen when I brought up the problem with mood issues caused by the 300 mgs increase in zonimaside. I've only been with her since my epilepsy came out of remission last year, and she's now of the impression that my problems with medication are the result of too much research - when in fact most of my allergies to seizure medications were diagnosed when I was too young to even know I had epilepsy. So of course I want to get as much information from other sources, because it was a battle to get her to consider letting me go back down even with witnesses describing how I was deterioriating on the increased levels of zonimaside when I had been expecting to do much better. At this point in time, I really don't have the option of switching neurologists, though that will hopefully change next year.