Keppra Allergy

I took Keppra for ten days.  (More about the prescription here.)  I started the day after leaving the ER, and two to three days later my life was flipped upside down.  The morning of Saturday, July 8th, I made plans to go running with a friend.  A week before being in Utah I could run five miles.  After a few days on Keppra, I could hardly walk.  We made it half a mile from my house, and I had to turn around and go home.  Breathing was difficult. 

I recorded the effects I was feeling from Keppra:

• Complete loss of appetite and rapid weight loss
• Small pimples all over my body (my skin was in so much pain that I could not brush my hair without wincing)
• Unbearable fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Loss of coordination--it became very hard to write and grasp objects
• Inability to think or process information (I even had to leave one of my classes early because I couldn't teach anymore) 
• Horrible anxiety, worse than anything I had ever previously felt
• Inability to walk (I went from being able to run 5 miles to not being able to walk 1 mile)
• Sight problems--I could no longer see my computer screen without my glasses, even when holding it up close
• Muscular pain

On July 14th I asked the neurosurgeon about my prescription.  He said he couldn't do anything about prescriptions, but he gave me a referral to a neurologist at OHSU.  The only drawback was that my neurologist couldn't see me until August 2nd.  I nearly had a panic attack on July 14th and could hardly sleep that night.  With no doctor being able to tell me why I was taking the Keppra, I stopped.  Two days later, I was back to myself and felt incredibly relieved.

Before my neurology appointment I was so worried they would tell me I needed to go back on Keppra.  When the neurologist told me that anti-convulsants were unnecessary at that point, I was thrilled.  They also told me that if I needed an anti-convulsant in the future, they had a recommendation and would forward it onto my neurosurgeon.  I was so grateful to be taken seriously and get positive feedback.