Success/failure experiences re: Lamictal?

I'm sorry to hear you couldn't refill it when it was working well for you. My pdoc also recommended it above Seroquel, Depakote and lithium. I hope you can somehow get back on it soon since it was working for you! Best of luck to you too!

Thank you so much for sharing. I'd take thirst as a side effect anyday over overwhelming depression. And I love water, so that's no problem for me. Great to hear you responded so well to it!

Are you referring to the potentially fatal rash it could cause? Yeah, that freaks me out too, especially since my pdoc said it was "1 in 10,000," but when I looked it up, it's 1.3 in 1,000 for adjunctive BP therapy. I'm like, uhhh, that's a HUGE difference, wtf doc. That's why the extremely slow titration schedule, but yeah, it still freaks me out, because I do have sensitive skin, so I'm going to be checking every inch of my body daily for any sort of weird rashes, just in case!

(And the odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 700,000 in the US, but 1 in 3,000 in your lifetime... so lightning is a safer bet than many psychiatric drugs. Thanks big-pharma, go figure! )

I'm sorry to hear it lost its efficacy for you. That must have been so frustrating. Have you tried anything else since then that's worked? That's kind of how I feel now about Wellbutrin XL... when I first started it and when I upped the dosage, I felt so much more alert, "up," awake, energized... but all that leveled off and I'm back to sleeping 12–16 hours almost every single day. I hope you've found something that's working for you!

Not yet my pdoc wants me to keep a mood chart so she can better see where I am at. My last visit was the first with the new one so she did not really know me at all. I will wait until the next visit and see if she suggests anything new. If not I will work to find a new one.

I really wanted lamictal to work for me because I've heard such great things about it. But alas, the side effects were too much for me, as they always seem to be. I got the blurred vision as well, and besides that I got the most insane raging anxiety I had ever felt. I started worrying about things that were so unlikely but slightly possible. I didn't connect it to lamictal until I stopped taking the drug and the anxiety subsided. So I unfortunately won't be able to try it again. I was bummed. I only made it up to 100mg.

I've found relative success on my current cocktail though.

Love Lamictal. I have been on it for years , now on 200 mg, down from 300 mg. No side effects to speak of. I take it with 20 mg Abilify and 100 mg Seroquel. It is a good cocktail for me. I wish you well on the Lamictal.

My doctor was weaning me off of some of my meds at my request. We were currently working on Lamictal, a drug I thought I didn't need (and she agreed in part). She dropped me from 400mg to 150 mg overnight (I believe the drastic change was an accident-- I'm going to talk to her about it when I see her on tues). Just a couple of days after the change, my mood went from hypomanic to mixed to suicidally depressed in just 3 weeks. It has been from hell. Needless to say, I am back up to 400 mg and will probably have to go back on saphris again also. . Lamictal, apparently, is a necessity for me! I have taken it for a long time and not had any side effects that I know of.

I don't think Lamictal did a single thing for me. The only side effects I had were sleepiness for the first about six weeks and a slight rash on the side of my face near my hair line. I gave Lamictal a 3-month try, but stopped taking it.

I have been in support groups in which members said Lamictal was very helpful for them. I've noticed that the people who found Lamictal helpful in the groups were people who were recovering alcoholics. I don;t know if it's a coincidence or not.

I've been on it for around 3 months (omg wow so I've only been officially Dx'd for 3 months aha.....) and titrating was a bit difficult but I did feel it working. Once I got to 200 mg I felt a lot better, more calm and peaceful which for me is an ideal mood state. Also I got my emotions back, I could cry again and I felt a sadness that was normal sadness (like not depressed) and a happiness that was normal (not the fake happiness I experience with hypomania).

However since I've been back at uni I've been quite up and down, my mood changes every day it's very frustrating. Soooo I have no idea if lamictal just stopped working or I'm just not trying hard to regulate my emotions?? I think the stress of going back to uni has triggered something but I'm not quite sure *what*. When I was depressed I took a break from uni so I was in a very calm environment for months then I recovered, back to uni and BAM.

The only side effects I got was insomnia when I took them in the morning (not at night), some acne that seems to have gone away, and I've noticed some short term memory problems recently? They're not so bad that I'm willing to change meds but I'm going to keep a watch on that.

Actually, if anyone has some recommendations for an anti-depressant to go along with lamictal I would appreciate it haha.

I'm sorry to hear you experienced unfortunate side effects, especially the intense anxiety, that sounds horrible. Good thing it stopped! It's also good you're doing well with your current meds. Don't know yet about Lamictal... I'm on day #2 of 25mg and I fell asleep for an hour without a Valium but with an oxycodone, woke up, and haven't been able to get back to sleep since. Hoping it has nothing to do with the Lamictal, but I've been having hypersomnia the past two weeks and the few times I couldn't sleep it was nothing an oxy or valium didn't help. Only thing that's changed is Lamictal... we'll see...

Thanks for the feedback and well wishes! Glad to hear it works for you!

Whoa, that's an unusually intense drop in dosage on a med that emphasizes slow titration on any literature I've read on it! I'm sorry to hear that happened to you and brought on a mixed and depressive episode. I hope that getting back on the 400mg will help you and you'll start to feel better soon. I guess the one positive is that now you know it works for you, but I'm sorry you had to find out like that. :/ Best of luck to you!

My pdocs both warned me about any rash that appears, "no matter how small," because apparently it could be signs of developing some sort of potentially life-threatening skin allergy. Yikes. Good thing you stopped taking it.

What a curious correlation between recovering alcoholics and rate of success with Lamictal. Sounds like a study waiting to happen.

Thanks for sharing... I'm hoping I start noticing a difference when I get closer to the therapeutic dose. It's such a slow titration schedule. I love that you felt you got your emotions back... I'm so hoping I can find mine again too. I miss true feeling and despise this emptiness. I'm on day #2 of it, and I'm experiencing insomnia. I don't know if it's from the Lamictal or not, because I have had insomnia a few times in the past two weeks, but I'm not ruling it out as a possibility. I also took it in the morning.

Sorry to hear the stress from school is affecting you. Is 200mg the final dose for you? Are you taking anything else? You asked about any antidepressants... the only one I'd recommend is Wellbutrin, and my pdoc said that "it's the only antidepressant someone with bipolar should take." I've had horrible reactions to any SSRI/SNRI I've tried in the past, so I definitely wouldn't recommend you even try any of those. Wellbutrin has helped me get out of the near-constant suicidal ideation end of depression, so for that I'm thankful. Helped me feel "up" for a few weeks after starting and then increasing dosage, but that eventually went away.

Getting used to a new environment is stressful, even on medication. I find university super stimulating, sometimes overstimulating... there's so much going on, so much to do, so much activity, so many people around, and almost all of them look so freakishly happy. Drives me nuts when I'm depressed/aggravated. :P I find it slowly gets more bearable as the semester goes on. I'm dreading starting school again in a week and a half... even though I'm excited it's my last one, I'm terrified too.

I'd be concerned about the short term memory loss too. My PTSD and depression does that enough for me, so I don't need any more piled on. Hopefully that goes away for you real soon, or maybe it's just because of stress right now. In any case, take care and keep on keeping on!

The Lamictal works well for me. It is an activating med for me. I am up to 300mg. By the way, I have been told by a doctor there is a possibility of a harmless rash, even though SJS is still possible. IMO most doctors can take a look at it and tell you if it is benign.

yep, most lamictal rashes are benign.. the really deadly one is super-rare. I got a rash one day (like hives) when I was titrating up lamictal and I called my Pdoc. He had me describe it, and wasn't too concerned. He just said, "monitor it and call me if it gets worse."
It went away. He said most rashes are no big deal, the "BAD" rash is super-rare but can cause your skin to die!