I started at 25mg for a week then 50mg then up to 100 now. I kinda had to rush my timetable as I was rapidly needing a substitute for the Depakote, I've had Depakote withdrawal symptoms a few times, and imo are even worse than benzo withdrawal. As for the check my doc told me to come back one time to do blood work, said that he just wanted to check that it wasn't affecting my kidneys, apparently some rare side effect can seriously damage the kidneys, but he said if everything came back clean I wouldn't need no more checks