It's so helpful to hear from all of you that have been dealing with this for a while. It's hard accept that there's no easy solution and that this is something that I'll need to constantly pay attention to and continually adjust to. I appreciate that we have this community to support each other. It's difficult being diagnosed at age 42 and figuring out how to integrate this into my and my family's lives. I know I'm not alone in this. Many of you have been through much more difficult times. Thank you all for responding. ❤

NellConti, I have to echo what Rusti, and others have said, in that because not every med works for every person’s epilepsy, the length of time varies. Also, there are different maximum doses for different drugs, for different age groups. Not to be discouraging, but it took me four different doctors, a lot of testing, and 18 years to find the right combination. I was seizure free for 10 years after that, but this summer I had a breakthrough grand mal (they said from the heat). I do not know yet if I’ll have to modify my drug cocktail again.

I guess the most relevant advice I could give, is to have patience. This disease is a formidable foe. I wish you the best of luck with your treatment, and hope your week is seizure free going forward.

@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member
I’ve always been the other way around. When I start taking a new medication I’ll go longer without a seizure. Then my seizures must get used to the medication and I’ll start having more seizures.

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A MyEpile...

Coming up with the right medication depends on your system. Everyone is different. A medication may work great for one person with the same seizures but might not work well for someone else. As far as a stable drug...there is none. Because people don't consider as we get older and our body changes. I can recall medications i was taking at age 14. But it will not work for me as i got older as my body has changed. What i am trying to say is, for some of us one medication works fine in controlling our seizures. For others like me for example, it may take a second drug to control my seizures. And it is going to take time to find the right dosage of the two. So, to determine how long it is going to take depends on the medication and the side effects of the medication and whether or not you can tolerate it.

Well as a child with Right TLE, it took about 10 years because I would effectively outgrow the dosage all the time. At the time this was going on I was on Tegretol. As of a few months ago they had to take me off that and now I'm no Keppra with Topamax. Putting aside all the stuff that happened when the Tegretol went up it has only taken just over 3 months to fully adjust to it. I haven't been on it that long though so it's still pretty hard to tell how well it's going.