Explanation on the timing of antiepileptic drugs
Common misconceptions about taking antiepileptic drugs – Taking medication does not need to be down to the minute. Children generally sleep for a long time and do not have a good routine, but some parents often disturb their children’s sleep and try to wake them up in order to give them their medication on time and at the right time. In fact, this is not right, and frequent interference with the child’s sleep may also be detrimental to the child’s health. So the relationship between accurate medication feeding times and your child’s sleep should be handled correctly. It is true that the timing of medication should be as accurate as possible, but that does not mean that it has to be accurate to the hour or even the minute. Since drugs need to be transferred and absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract, metabolized by the liver before they can enter the bloodstream, and then have to pass through the blood-brain barrier through a complex mechanism to enter the brain, at which point they can take effect.
Moreover, according to pharmacokinetics, after several doses, the blood drug concentration will reach a plateau, and a small change in the time of dosing will have little effect on the overall blood drug concentration. Moreover, the efficacy of the drug cannot be fully equated with the blood concentration. Therefore, it is only necessary to follow the doctor’s instructions to distribute the medication time as evenly as possible, for example, two times a day, you can take the medication in the morning and evening at about 7~8 o’clock, and the difference between the time before and after each dose is about 1 hour. In principle, the first thing is not to affect the child’s life too much, especially the sleep of children. Of course, if you miss a dose, you should make up for it in time.
What should I do if I miss a dose of antiepileptic medication?
Patients taking antiepileptic drugs should never miss a dose. If a dose is missed for some reason or due to negligence, appropriate measures should be taken in time to remedy the situation, otherwise a seizure may be triggered or even a status epilepticus may occur. The remedy for a missed dose is: if you are sure that the dose has been missed and it is a long time before the next dose, you should take the full dose again as soon as possible; if you are not sure whether the dose has been missed but only suspect it, you can take half of the established dose immediately. If the missed dose is found to be very close to the next dose, the next scheduled dose can be taken a little earlier and then taken again in the middle of the next two doses, or the two doses (or 1.5 times the normal dose) can be taken at once. If the above remedial measures are taken as soon as possible after a missed dose, the chance of recurrence can also be minimized.
Why do I need to take long-term medication after my epilepsy has been controlled?
Epilepsy is a chronic brain disease and there is no treatment that can control it in the short term and achieve no recurrence. After epilepsy is controlled with medication, why do some patients have seizures again after a while? The main reasons for this are the following.
(1) Discontinuing or reducing the dosage too quickly;
The recurrence rate of patients with seizures after the age of 30 is 50%;
③ The relapse rate is high for those with high seizure frequency and long treatment course before control;
(iv) Those with organic lesions in the brain;
⑤ Mental developmental disorders;
(6) Abnormal EEG before discontinuation, especially those with severe abnormalities;
(7) High blood concentration before discontinuation;
⑧ Certain seizure types: such as complex partial seizures, petit mal variants, which are inherently difficult to really control, often have certain and fluctuating seizures, or easily develop drug resistance or insensitivity to drugs.
Do not take the following drugs with epilepsy when you have a cold
(1) anti-cold drugs containing paracetamol, such as: ketamine, cold clear, cold pass, quick-acting cold capsules, silver wing vitamin C, Likshu, etc.
(2)Cough medicines containing opioids, such as compound licorice tablets, strong cough syrup, rock white cabbage, etc.
(3) Caffeine-containing antipyretic and analgesic drugs, such as: APC compound aspirin, depot pain tablets, etc.
(4) Do not drip penicillin intravenously in large doses, but can be applied in regular doses especially intramuscularly without much effect.
(5) various diet pills.
In case of other diseases, generally only other drugs can be added, do not interrupt epilepsy drugs on their own.