title: Worsening in seizure frequency and severity in relation to folic acid administration.
abstract: We report a case of increase in seizure frequency and severity in a 26-year-old woman receiving folic acid at a dosage of 0.8 mg/day. She had symptomatic partial epilepsy with simple and complex seizures treated with carbamazepine. She was planning pregnancy and we prescribed folic acid for prevention of neural-tube defects. In the next few days she had a generalized tonic-clonic seizure for the first time and a significant increase in seizure frequency. Because of the temporal relation between the seizure worsening and the administration of folic acid, we hypothesize a role of folic acid in provoking seizures, as has been reported in the literature.Copyright Lippincott-Raven Publishers
authors.affiliation: Regional Epilepsy Center, St Paolo Hospital, Chair of Clinical Neurophysiology, University of Milan Medical School, Milan, Italy.
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guidolin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vignoli
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Canger