[Pughead]

My pdoc thinks I have been teetering on the edge of hypomania for the last six months. He's right. I take 400mg of Lamictal a day for BP. I don't take any anti-depressants, which is great. As you can imagine, being just on the edge of hypomania is quite pleasant for the most part, except for irritability. Also, I need to knock myself out with 3mg of xanax each night. Otherwise, I could easily stay up all night long reading about theories of spacetime and all kinds of other stuff. The quest for knowledge never ends for me. That's just my personality, my nature. But you can see how it makes me dependent on the xanax to sleep.

My pdoc worries about this, as it has definitely become a "habit", and I've had to continually increase the dose of xanax because of tolerance. Basically, the doc is telling me that this is not a good long-term solution, and he's right.

So he's adding 500mg of Depakote, one dose each night. I'm tapering off the xanax by 0.5 mg, one week at a time. I've been reading though that Depakote raises your Lamictal levels in the blood, and you're suppose to adjust the lamictal accordingly.

I've been on as much as 3000mg of Depakote in the past, but not at the same time as lamictal. Actually to get on lamictal, we tapered on the depakote and ramped up on lamictal at the same time. But now, he didn't instruct me to bring down the lamictal level, which I think is already at the max at 400mg.

Maybe he overlooked this because the prescription for lamictal is written for 300 to 400mg a day. So basically, he left it up to me initially. So, do I use my discretion again and go back down to 300mg?

When I was on depakote, I gained weight like crazy. I am 30 pounds lighter than I was one year ago, and last June is when I completed the switch to lamictal from depakote. He thinks that when I was around 500mg of depakote in the "switch-over" phase, that I had already dropped most of my weight and that adding just 500mg will do the trick without adding the weight.

I am within 25 lbs. of my goal weight, and I want to get there, I can't bear the thought of ballooning up again. Moreover, I don't want to be taking too high of a dose of lamictal with depakote.

I think he may have just overlooked that, because the lamictal prescription is written as 1 to 2 tablets a day, twice a day. 100 mg tablets.

I'm concerned about depakote interfering with my creativeness, which is what I thrive off of. That's the biggest thing I noticed when I got off of it and onto lamictal. For the first time in over 5 years I felt like myself again, the true me.

We tried seroquel, but that landed me in the ER the second night I took it, at just a 50mg dose. I had severe panic symptoms, and my heart went into AFib, but I was too knocked out to care. I was just barely conscious. The EMT asked "You have an irregular heartbeat, can you feel that?" I was like, "Man, I can't feel *****." They got me back to normal in a few hours with ativan and beta-blockers.

I digress, is 400mg of lamictal too high for 500mg of depakote? I took my first 500mg last night with the now decreased dose of 2.5mg xanax. Holy crap I slept better than I have in months, for 9 hours! That's unbelievable for me. Usually, the xanax would knock me out for a good 7 hours, which was fine, but I'd be groggy as hell in the morning, until coffee time. So that's another dependence. About 12-20 oz. of coffee every day in the morning.

I rarely drink alcohol, and when I do it's usually not much at all, so I'm not worried about that.

Uggggggggh, so scared of weight gain! Don't want to lose the creative "edge", but wow the sleep is nice too.

Maybe 500mg is ok. I'm a pretty big dude, even at my "ideal weight" and BMI.

I guess I'll just see how it goes, and be extra mindful of my "no non-nutritious" food policy. Basically, if there's nothing beneficial in it: no protein, no fiber, no vitamins, or no important minerals, then I won't eat it. This naturally equates to less carbs, but it is not a low carb diet. Rather it's a way of eating that naturally excludes "useless carbs" that have no nutritional benefit.

Going off on tangents again. Can you tell I'm on the edge of hypomania? I tend to let my mind run rampant here in these forums, because people here understand, willing to listen (read), and accepting. This is such a wonderful place! And it's a place I need to visit more often, even in non-dire situations, just so I can offer help to others if the opportunity arises.

Thanks all!

Once again, no proofreading. I feel so truly free here that I defy my own personality traits!

[CrissaMB]

When I went to my newest psychiatrist (the old one retired, thankfully) the first thing he did was put me on Lamictal. He also added Lithium later but I had a toxic reaction to it. Apparently I'm sensitive. So, he opted on using Depakote. You probably need to have a Valproic Acid serum level blood test to be sure you're in the theraputic range. I was way low so he increased me from 1,000 to 2,000. I have to have the level checked again in another couple weeks. He also keeps a close watch on my thyroid lab results. He said that if you have an under or overactive thyroid, your problems can be exacerbated. I'm concerned to hear that you have gained weight on Depakote. I had gained a bunch of weight before they took my thyroid out and have been having problems getting rid of it. I really, really hope that weight gain isn't going to plague me now that I've started with D.

[Beyond123]

The depakote will probably chill you out a little more throughout the day instead of relying on xanax to sleep. Thinking a little more clearly will probably increase the level of physical activity you will experience. Though you may not be perfect, just love yourself and let others love you. There are no calories in that!