I've been on my new medicine for a month now and feeling ok. I'm taking Vimpat now instead of Keppra because Keppra messed with my head, majorly, and I still had episodes while taking it. Vimpat is newer and doesn't yet have a generic, so I'm probably going to face issues with insurance in a few months once the free trial runs out.
I still have some light-headedness and tingles (I can't think of the appropriate word right now) that dance across my head sometimes. It feels like someone is tapping swirls around my brain, really quickly. I do feel like my memory is not quite 100% (though it never really was, but it feels a little slower/worse than before).
I ended up having to go back in and have a blood patch on my back, which was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, after the spinal headache was still there 6 days later. They said the spinal tap pokes a (large) needle through your spine and out the other side. If one or both holes don't close up, you leak spinal fluid. Since your brain floats around in that fluid, if you have a leak, your brain has less cushioning (because there's less fluid for it to float in), and you will have the terrible headache until the hole is closed up. The blood patch is a procedure which just goes in the spine (and not out the other side), and you have your own blood injected so that it will coagulate and close up the hole(s) for you. The blood has to be fresh, though, so it's a very primordial procedure, to me.
First, I was numbed with Lidocaine (which hurt really bad--multiple stinging shots, over and over). Then the doctor immediately (before really giving the Lidocaine a good chance to work, I thought) went in for the procedure. He inserted the huge needle in my spine, then the nurse withdrew a pretty big vial of blood from my arm (which hurt like a mother), then the doctor injected that blood into the needle in my spine. The whole thing took just a few minutes, then I had to lay flat for two hours. I was released to go home and immediately felt much better.
I ran into my neurologist in the waiting room beforehand, and he was very confused and asked what I was doing there. I told him about the headache, and he was so apologetic. :) Obviously not his fault, but I told him it was all his fault. I was just glad to get some relief.
I go back to see him in July, and my return to driving is still slated for the middle of August. Fingers crossed that nothing happens to extend that. Poor Kevin had to drive all the way to/from Hilton Head, and now we are trying to figure out how to get both cars in for oil changes. Uber, much?
