nerve damage from Depakote

[JPB]

Has anyone experienced or heard of anyone getting nerve damage from taking Depakote? My father was on Depakote (for headaches) for a year starting in June 05. Shortly after starting the medicine, he complained about weak legs and tightening of his skin. By the fall he had a strange gait, tire and weak legs, muscle aches. By Jan. he was limping even more and his right foot was dragging, by June he could barely walk, he now must use a walker. It seems he now has periferal neuropathy and the doctors don't know what is causing it. He was also taking Lexapro but not during the entire time he was taking Depakote. I feel Depakote has caused this problem with his legs and no one will seem to listen and the doctors won't admit to anything.

[tomas714]

JPB wrote:

Has anyone experienced or heard of anyone getting nerve damage from taking Depakote? My father was on Depakote (for headaches) for a year starting in June 05. Shortly after starting the medicine, he complained about weak legs and tightening of his skin. By the fall he had a strange gait, tire and weak legs, muscle aches. By Jan. he was limping even more and his right foot was dragging, by June he could barely walk, he now must use a walker. It seems he now has periferal neuropathy and the doctors don't know what is causing it. He was also taking Lexapro but not during the entire time he was taking Depakote. I feel Depakote has caused this problem with his legs and no one will seem to listen and the doctors won't admit to anything.

My dad has been on Depakote for about 6 mounths now and today the nursing home called me and said they think he had a stroke but they dont know.They said he is unresponeive and can tall and his right side seems week I told them to send himn to the ER and they did i call and ask the ER DR to check his levels and they are going to do that .I just found out they incresed his does form 750mg to 1000 on the 6th oh this mounth hummm sound strange .But will keep ya posted

[janice ardt]

my husband was put on depakote 250mg 3x day i noticed he started losing his memory and weird things were happening. about 2 months after being on it he began to hallucinate thinking he was somewhere he wasn't and talking to people that was not there. I woke up in the middle of the night to find him gone he was found by police 100 yards from our home unresponsive. They had to give him narcan to jump start his heart, When i saw him in tthe hospital it was like talking to a brain injured person. He almost died from this medication.

[ake]

go to pubmed.com and type depakote and brain atrophy or fetal valproate syndrome (birth defects) and brain atrophy this stuff is bad they know it causes brain damage

[Bil]

No medicine is perfect. people respond differently to meds as people differ genetically. A certain percentage of people have a genetic disorder called a Urea Cycle Disorder. In these people, if they take Depakote and or a number of other commonly prescribed medicines for everything, they will develop increased levels of ammonia in their blood. This sounds like what happened to janice's husband. Often people who take Depakote have other things going on...other diseases...getting older is a disease. People are too quick to blame a drug, while there are ways to see if the drug is actually causing the proble...stop the drug under the physician's supervision is one way. Depakote is a lifesaving drug for far more people thatn have been hurt by it. The company that sells it is first rate as a global citizen. I hope that God blesses you all.

[mmm]

I am only 36 and have been on Depokote since April. They originally put me on Depokote, because the Wellbutrin they prexcribed for ADD caused anxiety attacks that would not go away, even after discontinueing the WEllbutrin. I was literally having an anxiety attack 24/7. They had to send me to the emergency room. Their answer was Depokote which controls it to a point, but if I miss a dose the anxiety attack starts with in hours.
Now my hair is falling out and my right hand shakes as though I have parkinsons disease when it is turned to the side and in a relaxed position. Makes it hard to eat soup:) I think this medicine is scary, but the medically induced anxiety attacks are even more scary. I cannot win.

[Suzie]

Bil wrote:

No medicine is perfect. people respond differently to meds as people differ genetically. A certain percentage of people have a genetic disorder called a Urea Cycle Disorder. In these people, if they take Depakote and or a number of other commonly prescribed medicines for everything, they will develop increased levels of ammonia in their blood. This sounds like what happened to janice's husband. Often people who take Depakote have other things going on...other diseases...getting older is a disease. People are too quick to blame a drug, while there are ways to see if the drug is actually causing the proble...stop the drug under the physician's supervision is one way. Depakote is a lifesaving drug for far more people thatn have been hurt by it. The company that sells it is first rate as a global citizen. I hope that God blesses you all.

YOU DON'T NEED A UREA CYCLE DISORDER TO DEVELOP HYPERAMMONEMIA AND BRAIN DAMAGE. jesus christ, you're an idiot. i hate depakote, i hate abbott, and i certainly hate you for misinforming people like you're some kind of expert. get the fcuk over yourself, "Bil"

[Suzie]

in fact, you don't even need hyperammonemia or elevated depakote levels to develop encephalopathy! depakote can shrink your brain regardless of how much you take or how much ammonia's in your blood. scary? yes! true? yes!

don't be a pharma drone. it's so ethically disgusting.

[john]

Suzie,

I loved your comment.

Do you have any literature to back it up?

[Suzie]

yes, indeed i do.

http://adhocinfinitum.livejournal.com

all the info's in there, you've gotta weed through it cause i took this junk as a child and now i can't write coherently. blah!

[Brigid]

Suzie wrote:

yes, indeed i do.
http://adhocinfinitum.livejournal.com
all the info's in there, you've gotta weed through it cause i took this junk as a child and now i can't write coherently. blah!

Suzie I'd like to do more research, but I couldn't access this info via this link. Is there another site you would recommend? I am in the position that Depakote is the only mood stabilizer that works for me. I have either an allergy, a toxicity, or no positive response to the others. Depakote, however, works great in small dosage so far with pretty minimal side effects.

[Suzie B]

Brigid wrote:

<quoted text>
Suzie I'd like to do more research, but I couldn't access this info via this link. Is there another site you would recommend? I am in the position that Depakote is the only mood stabilizer that works for me. I have either an allergy, a toxicity, or no positive response to the others. Depakote, however, works great in small dosage so far with pretty minimal side effects.

you're going to have to access it that way and get a neurologist to assist you in deciphering it if you really want to know. because of depakote, that's the only way i knew how to present it.

:(:(:(:(:(

BURN IN HELL, ABBOTT LABS

[Uniao]

I am 30 and I am on Depakote since 1998 or more time. I like my psichoterapist a lot, I respect her as well but I've never heard about any one that takes this medicine for that long and I'm scared. What's the damage that it cause in my brain? Do I realy need this to survive? Why can't I learn whow to live with this bipolar desease? Somethimes I miss my self... I was very impulsive before these treatmente, but I beleave very, very much in the talking part of the teraphy. Can't I only stay with these?

[JKR]

Is he okay now? I am concerned that I am damaged from taking Depakote for only a few days.

I am wondering if it can be corrected.

[Jim]

Uniao -- I have been on Depakote since it first came out in 1984. I switched to the ER in 2001. I had seizures. They have been controlled since I started Depakote and I not longer have them. It has been nothing but good for me. I have gained some weight and lost some hair, but that might have happened anyway. I have nothing but good things to say about it.

[nb jr]

this sounds like a situation I had with another medicine and have been told by a pharmacist friend that many other meds have the rare ability to cause very few people to develop "drug induced lupus". I actually developed DIL on a very mild antibiotic but others have gotten it on other drugs. The peripheral neuropathy was one of the big symptoms along with nighttime fever,severe aching in muscles,burning feet,headaches,etc. Everything went away after stopping the medicine except light lingering numbness in my feet. hope that helps, it will mostly reverse after discontinuing the problem drug.

[Smoke N Mirrors]

I was on Depakote for ... a while - a fairly high dosage - for treatment of bipolar disorder. After discontinuing the drug, my mental condition has improved dramatically. My cognition is better, my moods are more stable, and overall, my life is more enjoyable.
I do, in fact, believe that the makers of Depakote, and other drugs fail to publish "side-effects", or more accurately put, the functions & effects of these drugs.
I believe that in order for a pharmaceutical company to exist for any period of time and remain profitable, that they must and do cheat the system. Otherwise they would all go bankrupt from lawsuits and bad publicity. So it is, perhaps, a common business practice for Abbot and others to mislead, misguide and omit much information pertaining to the side-effects, general effectiveness, and long-term effects of taking these drugs. The FDA is not cracking down hard enough on these corporations, simply because for many illnesses, there may not be a medicinal answer, and "a" treatment is considered better than no treatment; that may not be the case in some instances. That only makes sense, right? Take the brain, for instance. The best neural-network scientist still have not been able to accurately model even one function of the brain. So to say that there is any science behind the guess & check approach to creating drugs is a complete fallacy. Completely ridiculous. I am not promoting "holistic" healing, but I do believe that the body has many natural defenses that doctors may not lend enough credit towards. Otherwise, they wouldn't have jobs.
Here's how I know Abbot and others cheat: many of their side effects are listed as "emotions". For instance, instead of saying "stupor" like lithium, Depakote lists "confusion". Less liability. And there are also the rankings of side-effects. They go from common, to less common, and from less severe to severe. The biased test reporting that UNDOUBTEDLY takes place is done very carefully as not to cause a stir. And some severe, and likely common side effects are thrown into the uncommon category for eco-stability's sake. Keeping the company afloat. No doubt the FDA helps out. After all, we need drugs, right? Righttt...
Then there are the doctors themselves, who with high-risk drugs, will often combine medications based on "the almighty literature". This dirty trick is the ole, "can't blame one drug" trick. If you get a really bad side effect while on 3 drugs (like I was), there is absolutely know way to establish accountability. That's just how the system is designed. Guess what, Abbot? You're all fired!

[Smoke N Mirrors]

*no way to establish accountability.

[lilly]

I have been on depakote for 3 months and the stupor slipped up on me. i am going to ditch this stuff. i have never felt so numb. nothing excites me. nothing. i touch myself to see if i still feel, as the johnny cash song says. nobody tells you upfront. im so glad ifound this site and know its not in my head. im on 55 and feel 80. this non-sense has gotta go.

[Dave]

I just happend across this while see if a generic of Depakote had been approved. I have to add my 2 cents worth. I'm 47 and have been taking Depakote since it became legal in the US. I think I was about 18 at the time. This drug has been a lifesaver for me. Nothing controlled my seizures until Depakote came along. I could not have lived a normal life without it. In the entire time I have been taking Depakote, I have only had 2 seizures. Prior to that, I'd sometimes have a 100 a day. I have had no side effects and at 47 still have a head of hair that rivals a 16 year old. I don't know what I would have done without this drug. I currently take 250mg in the PM and 500 in the AM.
PS-I'm a REgisted Nurse as well. I understand that not every drug is good for everyone...