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Have you ever doubled dosed on your anti-seizure medication (ASM)? This is an easy mistake to make.
Accidentally taking seizure medication twice can have negative consequences, so it’s valuable to learn more.
Get medical advice if you took too much seizure medication
If you accidentally took your seizure medication twice, immediately contact your medical doctor for advice. If you feel unwell or have taken more than one double dose, call 911. They can advise you on what to do, and may also put you in contact with the poison control center. You should also check the leaflet in the medication packaging.
There are many different kinds of seizure medication, and so the appropriate response will vary from one to the next. When you speak to a medical professional, they will likely ask for information such as:
- What medicine you took
- When you took the medicine
- How much you took
- How you took it
- Time since your previous dosage
- Time until your next dosage
Provide them with as much information as you can recall.
Related: Taking multiple epilepsy seizure meds
Symptoms of seizure medication overdose
There are many different kinds of anti-epilepsy medication, each of which has its own side-effects and risks from overdosing. Some may make you very sleepy, while others can cause arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats), and others can even increase a person’s seizure risk.
If you have the medication packaging that came with your anti-seizure medication, there should be information about side effects included in the leaflet.
Because there are so many seizure medications out there, it’s not possible to list all the possible consequences if you accidentally took your seizure medication twice. But some common symptoms include:
- Feeling confused
- Feeling very tired
- Involuntary eye movements
- Seizures
- Feeling nauseous or vomiting
- Weak muscles
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Breathing difficulties
If you accidentally took your seizure medication twice and are experiencing possible symptoms, call 911.
Medicine: Why might a seizure medication not work for you?
Avoid accidentally taking your seizure medication twice
Accidentally double dosing on seizure medication is an easy mistake to make. You might simply have forgotten you’d already taken your medicine, so you took two doses within a couple of hours of each other. Or perhaps you’re on a new form of treatment (such as switching from pills to syrups), so you took more than necessary as you weren’t so familiar with the quantities. If this is the case, refer to your medication instructions and speak to your doctor with any questions that you have.
One way to avoid accidentally taking your seizure medication twice is to use a seizure diary app. With the Epsy app, you can record each time you took your ASM, and double check later on if you can’t remember when - or how much of it - you took.
