Saturday, February 20, 2010

02.19.2010 - Seizure Control With Side Effects

I saw my neurooncologist today after my MRI scan and the tumor was still stable and unchanged, which is great. I started another five-day round of Temodar, an oral chemotherapy agent and will be doing that monthly. The plan now is to continue with that until October, which will be three years post-diagnosis. I had to stop taking Avastin because it was causing me to have high blood pressure. He wanted me on either Temodar or Avastin until the three-year mark. On 01.25.2010, I saw a seizure specialist and she took me off Lamictal and put me on Lyrica. I now take Keppra and Lyrica. I haven't had seizures since then, but Lyrica can cause weight gain and I have been slowly gaining weight. That side effect really sucks! I talked to my neurooncologist about it and he said there are other drugs that could work without that side effect. Let's see how much weight I gain before I object to the effect.