Survey study, 2013
Do women with epilepsy have more PMDD, and does the medication matter?
Overall, PMDD rates are similar in women with and without epilepsy. But women with certain types of epilepsy, especially temporal lobe epilepsy, have more PMDD, and lamotrigine may reduce the risk.
What they did
Cross-sectional study of 93 women with epilepsy and 30 women without epilepsy in Turkey. Researchers compared PMDD rates between groups and examined whether different seizure medications (carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, valproic acid, lamotrigine, levetiracetam) affected PMDD frequency.
What they found
Overall, PMDD rates were similar between women with epilepsy and control women. However, women with focal epilepsy, especially temporal lobe epilepsy, had higher rates of PMDD. Among seizure medications, women taking lamotrigine had the lowest rate of PMDD.
What it means for you
If you have focal or temporal lobe epilepsy, you are more likely to have PMDD. The type of medication you take for epilepsy might affect your PMDD risk, with lamotrigine possibly being protective. The study was small and observational, so we cannot prove lamotrigine actually prevents PMDD. Larger studies are needed to test this.
93
Women with epilepsy
30
Control women
5
Different medications compared
About the study
- Original title
- The eveluation of premenstrual dysphoric disorder ratio and the relationship with antiepileptic drugs in epilepsy patients
- Authors
- Özden Kamışlı, Suat Kamışlı, Şükrü Kartalcı et al.
- Journal
- Journal of the Turkish Epilepsi Society
- Year
- 2013
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 93
- What was tested
- Comparison of different seizure medications
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.5505/epilepsi.2013.50251
Topics
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