• Effectiveness

  Slight (for epilepsy)
• Side effects

  Severe (feels like something on right side of throat)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  A little hard to take

Dosage: 600 mg Daily

Cost: $25-49 monthly

• Effectiveness

  Moderate (for Nerve pain (neuralgia))
• Side effects

  Moderate (Dizziness, Mood swings, Increased appetite)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  Not at all hard to take

Dosage: 800 mg Daily

Advice & Tips: Take medication as prescribed. If you need to stop medication make sure you wean yourself off of the drug according to your doctor due to causing very severe side effects including seizures.

Cost: < $25 monthly

Side effects: Increased appetite, Mood swings, Dizziness

• Effectiveness

  Moderate (for epilepsy)
• Side effects

  Severe (Nausea, loss of motor control, Headaches, Loss of coordination)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  Very hard to take

Dosage: 400 mg Daily

• Effectiveness

  Major (for epilepsy)
• Side effects

  None
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  Not at all hard to take

Advice & Tips: It worked very well for a long time. At my request, under my doctor's care, I stopped taking it to see if I could do without medicine for my epilepsy. I could not. He put me back on the tegretol, but I became toxic on it at any dose.

Cost: < $25 monthly

• Effectiveness

  Can’t tell (for epilepsy)
• Side effects

  Severe (Difficulty thinking)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  A little hard to take

Dosage: 1200 mg Daily

Advice & Tips: 1) If you request a surgical evaluation and the doctor (in my case, Robert Gumnit, M.D.) refuses to let you out of the hospital forcing you to take more medication, get off of it if you can still think. If you cannot think another person will have to get you off of it and file a lawsuit in less than two years for you to have a chance to have a regular life again. 2) Over twenty percent of mothers I have talked with believe that "doctors know everything" and will not help their children survive. (And about 7000 deaths each year in the 1990s were due to a doctor killing a patient.) Make sure the person watching over you when you try a new medication will take action and not leave you a "zombie" (a nurse who told me I was within two days of death and my Dilantin count was up to 36.6 while getting off of Tegretol following the doctor's orders. 3) When I used over 500 mg/day of Tegretol, I could not think at all. When I got under 200 mg/day, then I regained control of my life. It was three years after my right hip shattered that I learned the Tegretol did that.

Side effects: Difficulty thinking

• Effectiveness

  Can’t tell (for multiple sclerosis)
• Side effects

  Severe (Pain)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  A little hard to take

Dosage: 100 mg Daily

Advice & Tips: severe allergic reaction. blisters under the skin on every part of my body. needed i.v. steroids to recover

• Effectiveness

  Slight (for epilepsy)
• Side effects

  Severe
• Adherence

  Never taken as prescribed
• Burden

  Not at all hard to take

Dosage: 100 mg Daily

• Effectiveness

  Moderate (for epilepsy)
• Side effects

  Severe (Bleeding in the joints, BLEEDING AT JOINTS)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  Not at all hard to take

Dosage: 200 mg Daily

Advice & Tips: DURING THE YEARS BEFORE THE MS DIAGNOSIS WHEN MY MEDICAL TEAM WAS STILL CONSIDERING EPILE[SY AS A POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS FOR THE SIEZURE LIKE CONTROTIONS; tEGRETAL PROVIDED ME A FEELING FOR THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME, THAT I HAD MORE 'CONTOL' OVER THE SEIZURES AND JUST GENERALLY 'FELT' BETTER!!