I would like to share my experience with neurologists. I've seen 4 of them over the years. One was a European neurologist with a background in psychiatry. The other three were "only" neurologists, no psychiatric background.
The one was an excellent and caring MD. He was supportive of my diagnosis and respectful of the meds my pdoc had prescribed. I actually saw that neurologist because I was having frequent, disabling migraines. At that time there weren't any outstanding treatments for migraines. Imitrex was just starting to be used, but it had the side effect of causing such sleepiness that if you took it you had no choice but to sleep for several hours.
So that neuro prescribed Depakote. Interestingly, the Depokote did reduce my migraines substantially. I stayed on it for about a year.
The other 3 neurologists were anti-psychiatry. It seemed to me that they saw themselves in competition with pdocs. The first 2 were dismissive of my diagnoses. All they did was send me for EEG's and tell me everything looked okay with my brain. 'Bye, see ya.
Okay. The fourth neuro. My pdoc had ordered a brain scan (MRI). It looked normal, but she referred me to a neurologist anyway. I was so looking forward to the appointment. So there I was, sitting in the exam room and waiting for the neurologist to come in. When he did he looked at my list of medications, looked up at me and I mean this seriously - he raised his voice almost to the point of yelling at me and snapped out, "As long as you are on Klonopin I cannot help you in any way!" A pretty ridiculous thing to say,considering that many neurology patients take Klonopin for seizures.
He left the exam room. I waited a while. He never returned, so I got dressed and left. It was a horrible experience.
The take-away was that the neuro seemed to hold me responsible for my mental illness and for taking meds as prescribed.
Bottom line, my trust in neurologists is not high. I would take what they say with a grain (or two) of salt. I don't think they know what they like to think they know about the complexities of the brain.
Of course, your neuro might be an excellent MD. I just want to share my less-then-helpful experiences with the 3 out of 4 MD's I saw, and that apparently it's well-known that, in general, neuro's have a "thing" against psychiatry.
As fort Lamictal...I find it immensely helpful. I have never had any side effects from it, except what Nammu mentioned - the "flat" affect and feeling that I have no personality. That was remedied by a decrease in dose, which worked really well.
Remember than if even one person with one possible side effect reports it, that side effect has to be listed as a possible side effect of the given medication.
I've known many people on Lamictal, both with BD1 and BD2. I've never heard anyone complain of anything bad about Lamictal besides the slow titration up that the med requires.