Posted by Minnie-Haha on February 19, 2005, at 17:39:29
In reply to Shedding More Hair Than My Dog...Bad Depakote!, posted by n@oise on February 19, 2005, at 15:13:04
> apparently the incidence of hair loss, thinning hair is quite rare. lucky me woohoo. now, i have long wavy THICK hair so i've still a while before the situation goes to defcon 1 (even tho i'm losing troops at an alarming rate).
>
> anyway. been on 1250 depakote pdoc just brought me down to 1000 to see if there'd be any change. just wondering if anyone's ever experienced this and if so, did a lower dose help or did you hafta get off it altogether????
>
> if lower dose doesn't work for me it'll mean going over to tegritol which would be just SUPER. more weight gain and god knows what else. i honestly believe my doc is trying to turn me into an oompa loompa...every week gives me scrpts for zyprexa 'in case i change my mind' when i so don't need it.I was on Depakote for a couple of years and did experience siginificant hair loss at first, but adding zinc and selenium did help. (Like you, I started with thick hair, so it never got too bad.) Eventually, I stopped because of the weight gain (in my case, 30 pounds - which caused me to get depressed) and I started having menstrual problems, too. Here is an interesting link about Depakote-related depletions.
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsDepletions/AnticonvulsantMedicationsValproicAcidDerivativescl.html
BTW: I now take Trileptal instead of Depakote and I find it pretty weight neutral... I just have to watch my serum sodium levels on it at higher doses.
poster:Minnie-Haha
thread:460423
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050217/msgs/460493.html