Hi all,

I started taking Lamictal two and a half weeks ago ish and yesterday developed the dreaded rash all over my upper chest and neck. I also developed little white bumps in my mouth and a few flesh colored hard bumps on my cheeks as well. I've been dizzy while sitting down, had a very high heart rate for me 30 points above my normal. There were a few other symptoms I had so I went to the emergency room. They gave me prednisone, which is a steroid so I took that and the rash started playing peek-a-boo with me. I also started getting an very bad headache that persisted throughout the day for twelve hours. My head felt like the brain inside was constricting, it was awful. I also started having a peek-a-boo hot cheek. It was odd because it was only one of my cheeks. No fever. I'm itching all over, going between having chills and then sweating even though my room was about 65 degrees. I called the 24 hour nurse support line for my health insurance and the nurse said that I needed to hang up and dial 911. I talked to my roommate to see if she would take me. She said no that I was being dramatic and didn't need to run to the emergency room every time I had a problem. That pissed me off. I called my pdoc and asked for his opinion. He said to hang up and dial 911. I ended up waiting about 15 minutes for my ditzy roommate to take me. She takes the long way and drives like a turtle. My pdoc called the emergency room to let them know I was coming and he thought I had Stephen Johnson Syndrome (the sometimes fatal reaction to Lamictal). While I was on the phone with the 24 hour support nurse and my pdoc I was having trouble concentrating on what they were saying and had to ask them to repeat themselves several times. So before I went to the emergency room I made a list of all my symptoms and medication so I wouldn't forget anything. The nurse was a total cow. The registrar wrote my symptom down as back pain! The nurse when I told her I was having a severe allergic reaction to Lamictal, she said, "oh so you have a rash?" I told her my pdoc called ahead and I needed to be seen urgently. She said, "Take a seat it will be about an hour".

Anyway, long story short I have to continue the prednisone and deal with the reaction in order to get rid of the potentially fatal reaction to the Lamictal. They gave me a list of things to look out for should I need to go back. A special shout out to all the people in chat that helped me through this and to my love Josh who was electronically by my side the entire time.

Love and hugs to you all,
Tara

P.S. This happened even though I have never once in my life had an allergic reaction to any medication. And I've been on quite a few in my time.

Yuck. Sorry you are going through that, but sounds like you had medical help pretty quickly.

The social worker at the hospital I have been in tells the story of starting lamictal one day, and waking up in the BURN UNIT a few days later! He was sick, sick, sick. But even he got through it okay in the end.

Hope you are on the mend. Keep us informed.

[madisgram]

glad u're on the mend, tara, and contacted pdoc right away.

[nicoleb2]

Thanks for the update! I was chatting with Whitenight (Josh??) last night and he was talking about how you were doing. We were all really worried about you!

Glad to see that you are getting better!!