Lamictal question

I've heard from several places that Lamictal takes a while to work. I started titrating up, starting at 25mg about a month ago. (I believe at my next appointment next week he's going to up it from 100mg to 200mg.) I've been at 100mg for about 2 weeks now.

I hesitate to say that I was in a "depressive episode" but for about 10 days after starting 100mg I was feeling constantly down and just generally melancholy. Only a few of those days were the "hide in the bathroom crying for a few minutes" kinds of days. The last few days have been pretty stable (following a pretty intense blow up at my mom a few days ago... oops). Although I'm still not sleeping very well. (By "not very well", I mean I get about 5 or 6 hours of broken sleep every night... not feeling all that tired though so I'm not too concerned about it.)

Anyway, for anyone else that was on Lamictal, how long and what dosage did you find you were more often stable than not? If I'm being honest I back and forth as to whether it feels as if it's working or not. It's driving me mad.

My pdoc said the antidepressant effect starts at 50mg (the 25 mg dose won't do much). I found that different doses worked for me at different pts in time based on how much stress there was in my life. I can get away with 50 or 100 when all is well. I need at least 150 in times of stress.

Not sure if my answer helps much!

EJ

I've been taking Lamictal 200mg once a day at night for several years now with Topamax 100mg twice a day, once in the morning and once at bedtime. These medications have changed my life. I went from being manic ups and downs and depressed super lows to a manageable mostly even keel. The Lamictal changed my life dramatically and I can definitely tell if I don't take it for a few days. It may take a few more days for the effects to wear off but it will. The the inappropriate spending will start again, the bubbling anxiety, the constant internal turmoil. I cannot say enough good about my medication regimen of Lamictal and Topamax. However, different medications work differently for different people and some require much smaller doses and some much larger doses to get the same effect. My prayers are with you and all who are on the board. Bipolar and mental health issues are no fun for any of us. I am in my 40's now but I was not treated for bipolar until my 20's. prior to that point I had only been treated for depression with antidepressant medications, after 4-6 weeks of antidepressant medication alone without a mood stabilizer I will be thrown into a manic phase every time. I was actually happy to actually be diagnosed as bipolar because then I knew what was wrong with me and that I could get treatment! I love my counselor. I tried a psychiatrist, he saw me for 15 minutes at a time just long enough to hand out high powered psych drugs. I worked much better withy psychologist with hour long sessions. He worked/works with my medical physician for medication changes if necessary. Again, my prayers and best wishes to you all. My heart goes out to anyone who walks the same path I walk. It's not easy but we can do it! <3

In times of stress putting the dose up don't work over night, it takes weeks for the higher dose to kick, so you only take more for on going condition not just feeling stressed for a couple of days ,you ride that out.

I hit 150mg and my Pdoc and I decided to just let me sit there for a while, I did not want to just keep increasing... From starting it to noticing it helping me was about week 6 . Been on it ahhh almost 3 years and I have never needed to increase.

I meant more long term stressors, not just day to day ones. Like I knew due to a stressor that the next 6 months weren't going to be getting better, so I bumped up to 150. Thank you for clarifying my confusing post!

EJ

I am fairly new to taking Lamictal. Only since late April. I just started feeling the effects a about a week or so ago.

My pdoc had me on 25mg once a day for 2 weeks when I first started. The it was 25mg twice a day for a month. Then I went back in for my next appointment. He upped it to 50mg twice a day for 2 weeks, followed by 100mg twice a day thereafter. I have been on the 100mg 2x a day for about 3 weeks now.

My husband is at 200mg to be mostly stable. He has not had his lamictal adjusted in over a year. I'm at 100 mg I'm not very stable but hide from pdoc when manic. Even though my dose should be raised everyone seem to feel it has helped.Both myself and my husband were outside mood swings when we started our meds. My son however was depressed, when he started. I noticed a difference in my son's negative thoughts at about 50-75 mg. He's currently @ 100mg.

He is monitoring you and adding more till he hits the MONEY SHOT. that's quite normal

I started on Lamictal at 75 mg then bumped up to 200mg and I don't experience any side effects. At first my speech was pressured and I had erratic sleep times. Other than that it works well for me.

Wow...you folks are on really low doses compared to me. Glad it works for you (and less cost!). I take 400 mg in the morning along with Effexor. Have tried many times to go down to 300 but without success - resulted in mania/extreme anger. It is the only drug that has made any significant positive difference for me. As others have said, everyone reacts differently to different drugs and dosages.

I started at 25mg for two weeks, 50mg for two weeks, and finally 100mg. I've actually been at 100mg for a week now. I was depressed for the first four weeks and had crying spells on a daily basis. I experienced a myriad of side effects from the 25mg (vivid dreams, insatiable thirst, poor short term memory), but once I began taking 50mg they subsided.

Ever since I started 100mg I've been at a stable, baseline level and am no longer experiencing side effects. I don't want to speak too soon because it's only been a week, but it's a good place to be. It's funny because I can't remember the last time I haven't felt too high or low, so I'm not sure what to do with myself at the moment.

My psychiatric nurse said that I should stay on 100mg until I have another episode, then it would be bumped up to 200mg for maintenance.

I can really relate to a lot of what you've said here! Lamictal has helped me a lot, Topomax one of my good friends. Yes, it's tough, but we can travel on this journey and enjoy some of it along the way. Great comments!

been one of my favs too, and i've been on a lot of diff ones/cocktails over years

Sounds like you took the start up side effects in your stride

I started to feel better around 150mg, and stabilised on 200mg. About a year later I had a relapse and when we increased it to 250mg that got me out of that depression. I'm still on 250mg and have been depression free for over a year. It's not so good at the manic side, so I take Seroquel to keep me down.

Lamictal didn't work much for me with regards to depression. I had to add another AD to feel better