Taking Stock: Asking About Side Effects

Fatigue

There are many causes of fatigue and sleepiness in people with seizure disorders/epilepsy. If seizures are disrupting your sleep, or if you have other sleep problems such as sleep apnea (where breathing stops briefly several times a night), you may feel unusually tired during the day.

Many epilepsy medications also produce feelings of fatigue, sometimes because of the dose, sometimes because of how individual people react to the drug. If fatigue is preventing you from enjoying activities and is affecting your life in unpleasant ways, here are some questions you may ask your doctor:

• Is my medication the cause of my fatigue?
• Should I see a specialist, or is adjusting my sleep schedule enough?
• Could this be a sign that I am depressed?
• Am I taking the appropriate dosage? Or could I be taking my medication incorrectly?
• What should I avoid so this won't happen?
• Is my fatigue at a level where I should reconsider certain activities, such as driving, until the problem is resolved?

According to study abstracts published in 2001 in the American Epilepsy Society Proceedings, epilepsy drugs can affect sleep and people with intractable seizures have a high prevalence of sleep disorders. Phenobarbital, phenytoin and carbamazepine may all decrease REM sleep, and gabapentin can increase slow wave sleep. A separate study that was published in the medical journal Neurology in 2000 reported that about 33 percent of adults with epilepsy have sleep apnea.

It is possible that your doctor will be able to suggest some changes in treatment that will help, or suggest tests to determine the cause of your fatigue.

Read about other possible side effects...