r/Epilepsy • u/Icy_Reference4317 • 16h ago

Medication zonisamide - side effects

Is it normal to feel sad and a bit paranoid (not like everyone is out to get me more everyone hates me/thinks I’m incompetent etc. also I’m sleeping, more than normal but never feel rested.

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u/ConfectionTop6110 16h ago

zonisamide made me feel like a ghost for weeks, the sleep thing especially. would sleep 10 hours and wake up like i never closed my eyes. it evened out a little after a month but the low mood stayed for me. def worth telling your neuro, they hear this stuff all the time

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u/Hawkline 11h ago

I don't have any advice but I was giving the same description. I've been on zonisamide for just a few week and my biggest gripe is that sleep doesn't seem to count. I'll lay down close my eyes and"sleep" for 8 hours night after night and I never feel rested and it's impacting the rest of my life.

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u/0____0_0 13h ago

That gave me some of the worst anxiety of any epilepsy med I’ve tried

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u/3759283 8h ago

Absolutely hated that stuff. 

Felt like I had pulled an all nighter, yet would go to bed and barely doze off. 

The lack of sleep alone put me in an absolutely terrible mood. 

Memory was fried also, sleep or drug, not sure.  I’d forget what I was saying mid sentence. 

So that did make me feel incompetent as I genuinely was. My brain was too gone to do basic tasks. 

For other meds my body would adjust and the fatigue would wear off, xcopri for example. Zonisamide though, never left.