It was so hard without genetic testing for us, my son, Elias aged 36 years almost killed himself under Keppra. In the first week of introduction of this anti-seizure medication which can be well tolerated for others, he scratched himself until he bled. The neurologist told me that this was his autism and that it was necessary to continue to increase the dose. The last level of increase of keppra had a severe negative outcome for him, the same evening, he was explosive and tried with any object to hurt himself, (self-mutilation, self-aggression). He was just 20 years old, a beautiful, magnificent, kind boy. My son was interned in a psychiatry ward because the neurologist did not want to recognize the side effects of keppra and had told the emergency doctors that it was a schizophrenic state!
Fortunately, when the hospital psychiatrist found out that my son was autistic and epileptic under Keppra, he quickly stopped Keppra and told us that autistic people cannot be schizophrenic and that my son had a known side effect under Keppra! After stopping this anti-seizure medication, my son returned to his normal state, it was truly spectacular! In that time I didn’t know anything about his genetic diagnosis, but for the last 20 years, we have had to fight to protect my son from the accumulation of side effects and only use anti-seizure medication that does not modify his behavior or his autism.
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