Prescribed Levipil For A Small Head Injury. Is This Medicine Safe?
Thank you very much for posting this question.
I have noted your symptoms. I do understand that you had a minor head injury too. The severity of brain injury can also be predicted by the presence or absence of certain symptoms like vomiting, loss of consciousness, bleeding from nose/ear and weakness of legs/hands.
I understood that you were on Eptoin and now on Levipil
Coming back to your question, Levipil is one of the safest medicines. The possible side effects which we encounter in clinical practice (very rare and few and it need not happen to you) are headache, some people do complain of mood changes and drowsiness in high doses. One of the rare side effects could be hallucination, anxiety, etc. Note that these symptoms are encountered very rarely.
To the best of my knowledge, none of my patients have fertility related issues with this drug.
So there is no much of side effects for this medicine even in long run.
I advise you to XXXXXXX and rediscuss the issue of using either Eptoin or Levipil. I personally feel that there is no role of prophylactic anticonvulsant even in patients with head injury. Further you have mentioned that you did not have any convulsion so far. If your CT scan is not showing any scar related to head injury and EEG (ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM) is normal, these medicines may be gradually withdrawn. However you have to discuss with your doctor and solve it.
Hope this will help you. I will be happy to clear your doubts further.
Dr Gopal Krishna Dash MD (Medicine), DM (Neurology), Post-doctoral fellowship (Epilepsy)
Consultant Neurologist and Epileptologist
Apollo Hospital
Hyderabad