I have always taken a rather large dose. For several years, I took 1,400 mg per day. As of about two years ago, I have taken 1,200 mg per day. I can't say that Tegretol XR (yes, I take XR) does the full job at keeping me stable, but it did seemingly do the full job at ridding me of some musical hallucinations and other odd almost seizure-like symptoms. It succeeded at doing that at 1,400 mg after about a few weeks to a couple months. I had a bit of an adjustment to Tegretol XR. As my dose went up and up, I experienced some spaciness and even double vision, however, those side effects eased then completely went away after a few months. They weren't constant. More episodic. My eventual reduction to 1,200 mg was because I had a recurrence of the double vision. This was years after taking 1,400 mg. The double vision stopped immediately after my dose was lowered.

The only side effect I currently attribute to Tegretol XR is clumsiness. And I can be super clumsy! This shows itself not in my walking, but to a small degree when attempting precision dance moves, or handling items. I break a lot of glasses, and similar things, and knock stuff over all of the time. My desire to ride my bike faded a long while back. I'm sure I could, though, but the clumsiness makes me reluctant. Despite this, I do not have a tremor or anything of that sort. All in all, clumsiness is not a big deal for me.

My Tegretol does seem to interact with a couple of my other medications. My Synthroid dose is pretty high, and my Seroquel XR dose has gradually gone up up up.