Challenges

Adding Lexapro to Lisbeth's meds has not softened the side effects of the Keppra as we'd hoped, so we decided to further reduce the Keppra. There is a liquid form of the medication that can be doled out in lower doses, and last Wednesday Lisbeth's staff at her home started her on a newly prescribed 250 mg a day. We thought we'd see an improvement in Lisbeth's behavior with this latest reduction, but instead, she got worse - she was sleeping for hours at a time during the day, and when she was awake, she was still having the perseverative dark thoughts and anxiety. Lisbeth slept over our house on Christmas Eve. That's when we noticed that a grave mistake had been made - the Keppra label read that Lisbeth was to receive 2500 mg a day, rather than 250!! We were sickened to realize that Lisbeth had been getting this monster dose for the previous 4 days!!! ARGH. Evidently someone at her neurologist's office put the decimal point in the wrong place. We did not give Lisbeth the Keppra that night, and got things straightened around with the on-call doctor yesterday. Lisbeth was doing well yesterday morning (thank goodness these drugs do not have a long half life) and resumed the low dose today. We'll see if it works. There's always something. Moral of the story, double check, triple check, all medication labels. Mistakes get made.