Up + Down + Pyridoxine

After Mira's episode on Friday, she has been very up and down, but mainly down. She was pretty irritable over the weekend, falling back into her cycle of not being able to stay happy for more than a few moments. On top of that, she was having a ton of myoclonics, all weekend long. Ironically, her irritability lately seems to coincide with her weaning down on the pyridoxine, at least it feels that way. For weeks we were getting positive reports back from school, telling us how well Mira was doing and how she was content most of the time, which is atypical for Mira, yet the B6 was not doing anything for her seizures for the past month or two. So I guess rocking the boat, with moving her down on the pyridoxine for a few weeks was not the best move - it isn't doing much for her seizures, but it is helping a ton with her moodiness. Pyridoxine raises serotonin levels in the brain (to what degree in comparison to say an SSRI, I have no idea) so possibly it is helping her just generally improve her mood. So, as of yesterday, we moved back up to where we were a few weeks ago and already, she is more vocal and happier. She did very well at school too - the first positive report in a while. I am going to look into this possible serotonin connection further. There is an interesting investigation of the role serotonin plays in epilepsy located here.