[MotownJohnny]

I was put on Lamictal 4 days prior to the day program last year, starter 25 mg dose 2 weeks, step-up to full dose by early November. (in their brilliance, they wrote in intake notes that I failed to respond to outpatient drug therapy - duh, it doesn't work in 4 days, I guess they were shocked I didn't report singing U2's Beautiful Day at the top of my lungs).

I want NOTHING to do with Lamictal. It made me sick, caused anemia, a kinda strong neurological tremor, nausea, dizziness. Side effects started about 4 months after full dose. If I missed a day, the nausea and tremor were really bad. Tried to withdraw per PDoc and it got worse. So I had to go back to the full dose and start over. First withdrawal was at the normal 2 month rate. We are now going so slow it will take a total of 9 months to get to zero. Side effects are mostly gone except for mild tremor - at least I can hold a cup of coffee or turn a key in a lock, at my worst I could not.

Mostly I fear it because it's labeled for bipolar. Being unable to withdraw makes me feel BP. I refuse to accept that Dx. I had symptoms superficially similar to BP but distinct. I desperately needed a sedative/anti anxiety drug and an anti-depressant when I presented. I felt that Lamictal did nothing for me. I wanted it to do nothing, because admitting it was working was admitting I was bipolar. I made miles of progress from October to June/July. I felt great about that, at least when I wasn't mired in my "I am the worthless scum of the earth lower than the most heinous criminal" mode half the time.

I am depressed again. I feel like I am going through the motions and not really caring about things I enjoyed immensely a month or two ago. My anxiety has ramped up a bit, nothing like last year, but still a bit. Especially when I go,out a night to ride.

I try to explain it away. It's the anniversary season of the events that got me there last year and here now. I tried the experiment in exposure therapy and it spooked me. I have a lot of recurrent thoughts of the past traumas. I still have pressures resulting from this, family pressure, financial pressure.

I desperately do NOT want it to be the case that the Lamictal was really helping. I was so utterly terrified of that diagnosis. I was ashamed to be on it and ashamed every time I went to the pharmacy.

But tomorrow is my next appt with the PDoc I really like. I am going to have to just show my hand and tell her about my thoughts and concerns and see what she says. I CAN'T go back to a place where I face every day feeling I am the Universe's punching bag. I just can't.

Time to grow up, I feel that I it's the mature rational thing to do to open up to her and see what she says.

Johnny out.

[A Red Panda]

Lamictal is a mood stabilizer, not an anti-depressant nor an anti-anxiety med. I don't see why you would be put on lamictal when you're talking about having problems with anxiety - it's not for anxiety! It's to stabilize moods, help slow down cycling, and for use if you have seizures.

You'd probably get more responses, or even advice about other meds, if this was in the medication forum. But it sounds like you need something for anxiety.

[MotownJohnny]

Originally Posted by A Red Panda

Lamictal is a mood stabilizer, not an anti-depressant nor an anti-anxiety med. I don't see why you would be put on lamictal when you're talking about having problems with anxiety - it's not for anxiety! It's to stabilize moods, help slow down cycling, and for use if you have seizures.

Amazingly simple concept, isn't it - prescribe a drug appropriate for the condition. Good thing she wasn't a surgeon, if I had presented with acute gall bladder she probably would have taken my appendix out.

Guess that will teach me to see a doctor with a medical degree from the Port au Prince Correspondence School of Cosmetology and Medicine.

I shouldn't sound like I am disparaging foreign doctors, most are great. My cardiologist is from the Middle East with a degree from there, and you couldn't ask for a better doctor.

Thanks for the tip, I may cross-post there later.

[fancy]

Lamactil is a very strong medicine and if you do decide that you need a mood stabilizer there are others you can try. I took lamactil and it did help but I got sick and went off of it and went on Topamate, an anti seizure medication! This was all based on the diagnosis of bi-polar II disorder.

Finally after losing a lot of my hair and having such cognitive difficulties that I could not concentrate enough to read a book, I went off topamate as well, slowly, as sudden can be dangerous. Consult your doctor of course.

What I found is that I was better without it. I had recovered somewhat from my traumatic response by then and I believe the diagnosis was wrong. I have been off of meds now for 2 and a half years. I can think now and my hair grew back! I am a bit depressed but trying to accept and cope with it.

My doctor knows I am off of meds and is supportive. I am very careful to get enough sleep and I am using other tools to deal with my negative thoughts. I would not have been able to do this a few years ago so just follow your and your doctors best thinking on this but there are many drugs and those side effects sound much to hard to tolerate.

Painting and even just crafts help me as they engage my right brain and my left brain (which is often telling me how awful it is) gets a rest.

Best to you

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

[Open Eyes]

At one point a psychiatrist wanted to put me on a mood stabilizer too. He wanted to use Lithium though. I never tried it because I really didn't want to do drugs tbh.

((Johnny)), just because it seems like this drug is "helping" you does not mean that you have bipolar or something is "wrong or bad".

Hun, PTSD is not "just" an anxiety disorder either. PTSD also has "emotional swings" to it, especially when someone has c-ptsd and is slowly "working through it in therapy".

You have been talking about your father and your past a lot lately, this is going to bring forward a lot of "challenging emotions" in you. With complex-PTSD, while working through these difficult childhood experiences, often what happens is "emotional flashbacks" where you really "feel what you had felt back then". People who struggle with complex PTSD get very confused for a while because of how these "emotional flashbacks and even deep depressive feelings and thoughts can come forward just as if you are reliving that time in your childhood". This is not just "remembering" which is what many people do "not" understand, this is different and can present days of feeling "low, emotional, confused, depressed, and worthless".

Honestly, it took me a while to understand it myself too. I began to recognize that once I began working through my past in therapy, it opened up a door to things coming forward that I had never realized I could "re-experience" the way I have.
For example, I began to "relive" the way I got so "exhausted" once I got off that horrible/terrifying ride on the school bus every day. It was as though I "was" that child all over again, and it really disoriented me. I have relived those days right down to the "pattern" of how those days affected me in a pattern.

Here was a typical day for me back then that started right away in Kindergarten. I would climb on that bus behind my older brother. As soon as he got to the top step they started in on him, picking and chanting and bullying. It was not long before they began to pick on "me" because I was "the sister" and it was such an emotional challenge for me to find a seat to sit down without getting turned away because of being connected to my brother. By the time I got to school I was very stressed out and had to find a way to somehow "calm down" and "try to listen and learn". I had a hard time paying attention because I was so "traumatized" by that bus ride to school.

I was always "tired" at school and experiencing "anxiety" back then, only I didn't know what that meant, only that I had to somehow manage. Then there was the bus ride home, more constantly bullying and I had to study my brother's face because I had to know when he was "ready to explode" because after we got off the bus, often my mother was still at work and I had to have a quick plan to run and hide somehow as he would take his frustrations on "me".

By the time it was "bed time" I struggle to actually "go to sleep" because I was so "wound up". I twittled my hair all night long just to try to "relax so I could sleep".
I always hated the mornings because every morning I was very "tired" and always took me time to get up, try to manage a head full on knots and find something to wear for school. Then the cycle began all over again with the bus. What 5 year old has the capacity to understand all that. Plus, the fact that my parents were constantly disciplining my brother which only "made him worse". It was already "so bad" in my environment that trying to tell my parents that my brother was also sexually abusing me was "out of the question" as I genuinely felt if I did that, that he would end up "killing me".

That was my life my entire childhood right up to my teens. The one thing that saved me was that my parents got me a pony at age 11 and as soon as I got off the bus I would get on that pony and get away from my brother and ride down the road and into the woods where he could not catch me/follow me.

Before I got the pony I used to run from my brother and climb up a huge evergreen tree and sit there until my mother got home from work. My brother never found me there, but every single time I prayed he would not think to look for me up that tree. I almost died of pneumonia because often I was "freezing" up in that tree at least 40ft up. I have also relived the pneumonia where I was put in a bath of ice in and effort to get my temp down from 105.

I was so tired in school that I often held on as long as I could and then would go to the nurses office where I felt safe and could actually "sleep". I have had "flashbacks" where I am running through our house shutting doors behind me with my brother chasing me, I was terrified. I had no idea I could so "vividly" relive that just as if it is happening in the "now".

Johnny, it takes time to finally "work through" all these things that come forward where you really "feel" that child in you in a way people do not understand can happen.

However, you "can" get to a point where you can "finally" process these things better and "slowly" get to a point where you begin to "gain" on "reliving the emotions and anxiety and feelings of fear, or worthlessness" that come over you as I am describing. It takes time to understand what is "happening" and that it can be very lonely as most people simply do not believe how difficult and very "real" this challenge is.

It really sounds to me that you are at the point where you are working through these "emotional challenges" as you are discussing and remembering your past. I have been observing you, and I can see where you are. You need to be "patient" with this part of "working through" PTSD, it will "slowly" ease up as you deal with it all with your "adult mind and reasoning skills that you did not have as a child".

You are still in the first stage of healing, but also touching on the "Remembrance and Mourning stage of PTSD recovery.

You should get Judith Herman's book, "Trauma and Recovery" so you can better understand "the stages of PTSD recovery" and understand "the healing path" so you don't feed into it or determine these "low feelings" as something you "will always feel or have to feel". It is up and down for a while, cycles that resemble Bipolar, but it is "not bipolar". However, it is not unusal to have a "mood stabilizer" be recommended and have it "help" to some degree.

(((Big Caring Hugs)))
OE

[Open Eyes]

Mowtown, I just wanted to "add" here that the human brain is pretty "amazing" and while I know you are struggling, you need to give yourself a chance to "finally heal".

You have been misdiagnosed and confused by people who are "supposed to know better". That is triggering too, because your parents were also "supposed to know better" and let you down too. I am sure you are "angry and frustrated" about that, well, "me too". But, Mowtown, you have the capacity to grow past all of this and
finally "heal" in spite of it, however, it does take time and lots of patience, especially patience with "self".

There is nothing wrong with shedding some tears and feeling anger and even disappointment, however, it is "very important" not to allow yourself to "re-enforce" what ever negative you have experienced that hurt you. Always remember this journey is about "healing" and that means "you" have to "comfort you" and not allow yourself to feed into feeling "worthless or somehow inadequate" as a person. You are just "finally" taking the time to really "help that hurt child in you as well as whatever other trauma you experienced in your life".

I always thought that whatever I lived though, I just got past and kept going somehow, I never realized that I walled it off and could relive it all again with this thing called PTSD. I am pretty angry about that tbh, and I really hate when people are "dismissive" and hand out the "just deal" comments.

PTSD is Up and Down in the healing process, the healing is not a steady climb and it "does" take time, and yes it can be tiring sometimes, but it will eventually "level out" with time, how long depends on what is there to "work through", each person is a little different, however the "challenges" are pretty much the same as far as the symptoms go.

[MotownJohnny]

Hi, all. The level of support and guidance I am receiving here continues to blow me away. It makes me feel so much less alone in this.

My doctor's appt went extremely well. We decided to cut the lamictal further then plateau there for a while. We are adding Prozac to the mix.

Therapy was tough but productive.

I am just ... ? right now. Tomorrow will be another day.

[HealingNSuffering]

Just because Lamictal was working doesn't mean you have bipolar Lamotrigine is commonly prescribed (off label) for PTSD. It is not even completely a bipolar medicine, it was developed for epileptic seizures. My Pdoc wants me on a mood stabilizer but I think I'm happier being unstable than stabilized on any hardcore drugs like that. A preliminary study of lamotrigine for the t... [Biol Psychiatry. 1999] - PubMed - NCBI this study says that 50% of patients with PTSD responded to Lamotrigine and that it would be a good "add on" for antidepressant pharmacotherapy. In psychiatry if it works better than placebo it gets used off-label.

They still don't have any PTSD specific drugs unfortunately scientists need to get working on it I read somewhere that scientists in Israel are working on it.

[Open Eyes]

I am glad to hear you feel supported here. I know it can feel "lonely" when struggling with "complex PTSD" but you are really "not alone" with this challenge, a lot of "good people are challenged by it". You just have not had a way of connecting with them until you found PC which is "one place" people who are struggling come and interact.

I actually had a customer come out to my farm one day that is a "neuro psychiatrist"
and she told me that most people who struggle with PTSD do not talk about it or admit it to others.

Right now they are studying how "emotions" affect the brain, there still much we do not know and are "learning" about the brain. HealingNSuffering is right about medications, they are still "trying" different medications to see what ones are more "helpful" to PTSD sufferers. So have an open mind when you are considering what may help you the best.

I will say however, that "therapy" is often found to be the "most" beneficial when working through PTSD. The fact that you "feel better" with the support you have gotten here is proof that having support, someone who actually hears you and can validate you" is "helping you" a lot. It was a life saver for me too, that is why I do my best to offer my support here as well as whatever I am learning as I too am working through complex PTSD.

I began to develop PTSD back in 2007, I had no idea what it meant, like you I was misdiagnosed too and I got a lot worse and I was "very lonely and frightened" by it.
It took me a "while" before I found the right therapist too, and it sure has been a challenging journey. I have learned "so much" and knowing how "scary" it is, I do my best to share what I have learned in my healing.

You are going to have those challenging "down days" but always remember these are "waves" that come forward and "they "do" pass. It is so much better when you learn how to be "patient" with yourself and after a while you will slowly get to a point where these down days are "less and less" because you will understand yourself better. I can't say enough to make sure you "catch" yourself and stop yourself when you begin to "self criticize" and "don't let yourself feed into "self blaming". I have noticed that you have done that at times. Be "kinder" with self, the healing goes "smoother" that way ok?

(((Hugs)))
OE