Posted by SLS on December 8, 2006, at 9:18:27
In reply to Re: Is this good?, posted by TrishP on December 8, 2006, at 8:35:57
> That's about it. I haven't tried Keppra. Is it a mono-therapy drug or is it something that I would add to the Abilify? I wonder if it has weight gain issues.
What benefit are you receiving from Abilify?Take a look at this abstract regarding Keppra (levetiracetam). It describes a case that ended up responding to Keppra monotherapy after years of experimentation with polypharmacy. The dosages used with this patient were approximately 2000mg. When I tried Keppra, I did not gain any weight from it.
- Scott
----------------------------------------------1: Epilepsy Behav. 2004 Dec;5(6):1017-20.Click here to read Links
Monotherapy treatment of bipolar disorder with levetiracetam.* Kaufman KR.
Department of Psychiatry, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 125 Paterson Street, Suite 2200, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. kaufmakr@umdnj.edu
Bipolar patients with early-onset, comorbid substance abuse, rapid cycling, and mixed episodes are difficult to treat and frequently require rational polypharmacy. When polypharmacy is unsuccessful, the clinician must consider the off-label use of newer psychotropics. Levetiracetam is a novel anticonvulsant with antikindling, inhibitory, and neuroprotective properties that is effective in an animal model of mania. This case report describes a patient with treatment-resistant rapid cycling bipolar disorder who failed 15 psychotropics, individually or in various combinations (maximum of 6), but ultimately responded to levetiracetam monotherapy and remained without bipolar features during 1 year of maintenance treatment, excluding 1 week during which the patient was medicine noncompliant. Further, methylphenidate used to treat comorbid attention deficit disorder did not precipitate manic features. Levetiracetam should be further studied for its potential use in the treatment of bipolar disorders.
PMID: 15582854 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
poster:SLS
thread:711188
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061206/msgs/711442.html