[sushi1]

My daughter has mood swings and is scarily impulsive which has led to her cutting becoming more severe. She is depressed and has some anxiety and some bipolar qualities (no clear manic episode though), but mainly she needs help evening out her moods and not to flip out so easily when she perceives someone has done her wrong.

She's been on lexapro for about 6 months with very slight improvement until about a month ago when she cut herself terribly at the end of a relationship and has been cutting and quite sad since. She has an excellent new psychiatrist who has prescribed lamictal, the only problem is that getting up to a therapeutic dose is such a slow process, sometimes I'm not sure if she'll make it long enough to see if this drug will do her some good. Her pdoc is "borderline uncomfortable" with continuing to treat her as an outpatient and is encouraging me to get her into an acute inpatient setting. My understanding is that if she were inpatient or partial hospitalization, she could titrate up more quickly because they could watch her for Stevens-Johnson syndrome more carefully, which seems to be her pdoc's biggest concern about this drug in young people.

Anyway, that was a long way of asking how people have done on lamictal. I'm feeling pretty desperate for her to feel better quickly.

[DePressMe]

Yes, it takes forever to titrate up to a therapeutic does of lamictal! That drove me nuts. I am glad I hung on because it has evened out my moods. I am a big fan of lamictal because not only has it evened out my moods, I have not noticed any side effects.

If your daughter is that acute maybe she does need a little more help…

[sushi1]

So do you have any guess as to whether people can be titrated up faster if they're inpatient or partial inpatient?

[DePressMe]

I don’t really know about titrating up faster…it seems like there is a pretty set regiment. Is there something else that can be done to help until the lamictal does hit a therapeutic dose? I hate to even bring this up…but, what if the lamictal is not the right drug? Its hard to tell what drug might work. I guess, I am suggesting a backup plan just incase…

[WinterRose]

I think Lamictal is a good drug. It has helped me. I don't know if you can get up to maintenance level faster or not. That would be a good question for the psychiatrist.

[story237]

-sniffle- I LOVED... sad to say, now probably forever past tense, LOVED Lamictal.

livejournal.com/users/nolacontender

if you want to know the whole recent story - sigh- Seriously Lamictal made me feel more ME than I've felt in years. God, now I'm going to cry again.