Hi Tate,
I can relate to your situation.
My daughter, 6, has temporal lobe epilepsy and was diagnosis at 2 1/2. She did have brain surgery last year to remove the seizure focus. She is still having seizures and being re-evaulated for reoperation.
She is currently on Tegretol CR, Lamictal and we are weaning gabapentin. Her behaviour has always been more intense, impuslive, hyper. She has definate attention and focus issues and has for as long as we can remember.
These issues have seemed to be heightened as of late, and we are reducing the gabapentin. No one will confirm that it is the medication causing the problem, but the behaviours were exaserbated after our 2 last increases, so it stands to reason that it might be the cause.
She has been on lamictal for over 2 years and she has just started to show signs of anxiety. It is so hard to know with epilepsy, medications, age of the child, where one problem starts and another begins. It is a huge puzzle that you can never quite fit together. And yes, it is beyond frustrating. I completely understand.
I agree that you should consider the lamictal as a possible irritant to your child's behavioural concerns. My experience has been that the docs are very hesitant to suggest that it might be the medications causing the behavioural concern. The only drug that my neuro has agreed can cause behavioural disturbance in children is keppra. It has a very high incidence of emotional lability.
I am here if you want to chat.
Are you a member of the Epilepsy Foundation of America? If not, you should check out their website (www.epilepsyfoundation.org). They have a very active parents helping parents community just like this one. There are many there that can share their experiences and advice with you specifically regarding epilepsy and medications.
