Lamotrigine making me depressed?

So, I started taking 20mg of paroxetine hcl in december, but apparently it was making me hypomaniac, so my psychiatrist prescribed lamotrigine as a mood stabilizer (25mg every 12hs) and lowered my paroxetine to 10mg.

The thing is, I started feeling a lot more depressed. Has anyone ever experienced this with this medication or other mood stabilizers?

Also I'm on lamotrigine for a month now and ran off of the pills on tuesday, so I'm on my 5th day without taking it. I had "productive insomnia" yesterday and the day before it and I'm feeling slightly "up", I feel happy and my emotional responses are not as inflammable as they usually are. Is this some sort of weird effect bc of withdraw? I never thought withdraw would feel nice. Not even intrusive thoughts are able to let me down today, they just come and go.

I know it was such a low dosage, but this was definitely weird. And tbh, it didn't do much for my mood swings, anger ou explosive mood, so I'm hoping my doctor will prescribe a new med when I see him this week.

I didn't have that with Lamotrigine (it actually made me more anxious), but I did get more depressed on Trileptal, which my p-doc was using as a mood stabilizer (along with Zoloft, which I'm still on). I'm now on Zoloft and a very low dose of Abilify (1 mg), and that seems to be helping. (A higher dose of Abilify made me feel agitated/on edge, so trying a really low dose for now.)

Also, you might need to go back to the higher dose of paroxetine with the lamotrigine. Definitely talk to your psychiatrist about it.

Lamictal has always been kind of a strange mood stabilizer for me. It never stabilized me without the help of other meds. I am currently on 400 mg. On 200 mg, I remember there were times I was very depressed on it, and I would swing from mania to depression/"switching" of moods quite easily. It wasn't until I reached 300-350 mg when I started noticing somewhat of a difference.

Definitely talk to your pdoc about what you are experiencing. It may or may not be the Lamictal, there are multiple factors that need to be considered where a doctor will have to explore that further with you. I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks for the replies. I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow, thankfully. I heard that lamotrigine usually only start to work after the 200mg/day, but I'm want to ask for another option because this med is just... weird.

But really, I was feeling WAY too good yesterday and I believe it has to do with lamitor withdraw, something rebound inside of my head. As it was so sudden, I don't think it's durable or even trustable. But not even my intrusive thoughts managed to bring me down.

Yesterday I had trouble sleeping. Had anxiety crisis and woke up wiithout being able to breath a couple of times.

Hi. Any psych drug can make things worse. I'm not at all anti-psych drugs, I'm just trying to be honest and open with you. the anti-seizure drugs can cause depression, lower your mood, make you anxious, sometimes they'll cause agitation and psychosis (Keppra is apparently bad about that one, btw).

My advice is to listen to your body. In more severe mental illness cases, medications are often (usually?) a must, at least for a while. In those cases, a lot of times the best one can hope for is to get a drug that doesn't cause intolerable adverse effects and gets the job done reasonably well.

In your case, it sounds like you should have some flexibility in choosing what, if any, psych drugs to take, how long to take the drug(s), etc. I'm not trying to minimize your problems, but I am saying that you're not manic, psychotic, having a nervous breakdown, etc., so you can be a little more "picky" about your psych drugs, or at least...that's my take on it.

I hope things work out well for you.

I actually felt lamotrigine to be effective for manic spikes, (as it has been for you) but I did find some difficulty after using it for a few weeks, as the dosage become more.

I'd definitely saw speak to your doctor- I know that you ran out, but I can assure you that good doctors actually praise patients who are intuitive enough to notice these things without being asked 'have you been down?' and you realizing what was happening; you were getting depressed due to meds.
Well done on being conscious about these things.

Chances are your doc will prescribe lithium, a very old, yet very effective mood stabilizer (blood tests for thyroid and kidney function will probably happen first)

An antipsychotic is another possibility, but a mood stabilizer such as lithium or valproate.

Yep, I believe I can, at least to an extent. My unbalanced mood puts me in suicide risk and I self-harm and abuse of meds, but I'm not in full mania. I get what you mean, don't worry.

Thanks! I think lamotrigine alone isn't helping me, at least not at this dosage. I'm thankful that it holds back my mood spikes, but only the hypomaniac ones: anger and weird impulsive mood is still here.

I can't take lithium, too many thyroid dysfunction cases in both sides of my family and I wouldn't take the risk. My mom is probably mentally ill too and when her hyperthyroidism was out of control it made things a lot worse.

On a side note, I think "feeling good" is a withdraw symptom. I'm insomniac and euphoric. Damn.

Back from the doctor and he (or me, tbh) couldn't be sure lamotrigine was making me more depressed as I discontinued the medication and was comparing my past weeks with this "feeling good" rush I had.

So he kept all my dosages the same for now and I'll track the effects for another month. I'm sure I'm not getting it wrong and it made me more depressed, but I'm so confused with the sudden withdraw symptoms that it was better to do as he said.

I still wonder if other people experience increased depression when taking antiepileptics as mood stabilizers.

I've been on 150 mg of lamictal for a while now. I've found that it does great at keeping the hypomanic spikes to a manageable level but doesn't do much for depression. It's not that it made me more depressed, it just didn't do anything for the depression when I experienced it. I had to add in Vraylar to help with the depression and mixed episodes. So, between the two, my moods are fairly well controlled now.

Then it could be my lower dose of paroxetine indeed.
I never felt any huge change with lamictal, not even side effects. I didn't woke up feeling better after it or feeling like my impulsive mood or the intrusive thoughts that feed it are gone, but my hypomania is definitely more controlled.

I believe I'll have to add an antipsychotic to my mix as a complementary mood stabilizer, but it's better to ajust my antidepressant x lamotrigine doses before.

Ugh, I took Paxil (paroxetine) on two different occasions between 1999 and 2013. It helped my anxiety (especially my social anxiety) and depression a little bit, the idiot pdoc I was seeing at the time slowly titrated me to the max dose (80 mg) without telling me anything about the downsides to that drug.

I crashed into a devastating depression 5 years ago when I tapered off Paxil without seeing a doctor. (I know, stupid, but what's done is done and that was an awful time in my life that I'd rather not revisit.) I went to a pdoc and he put me back on Paxil. I felt stable for a little while, but then I went into depressive episodes again. I hated Paxil all those years because it made me hungry 24/7 and I gained a ton of weight which lowered my self-esteem.

I have just been put on lamictal and when I see my new pdoc on Monday I am pretty sure he is going to want to add another SSRI I haven't tried in order to address my anxiety attacks and ensuing Xanax dependence. Not looking forward to taking a SSRI again.

Bumping this up with an update... I need help.

- I started taking paroxetine in the last december and it improved my mood greatly, lowered my anxiety and all. Didn't helped 100% with impulsive thoughts, but it was already a start as I was VERY suicidal and self-harming a lot.

- In february (I think. Need to check for accuracy) I had an hypomaniac episode and was put in lamotrigine, it did managed my peaks. Doctor also lowered my 20mg paroxetine dose to 10mg.

- Started feeling depressed again. Not as much as before, but depressed and slightly suicidal again.

- Ran off of lamotrigine for like... a week and entered hypomania again. 3 days without sleep. Saw the doctor while hypomaniac and couldn't tell if I was really depressed before bc while tired and rushing, I couldn't take off this stupid smile of my face and acted confused during the appointment. He asked me to stay one more month with this medication (10mg of paroxetine and 50mg of lamotrigine) without interruptions, so we could track it better. This was 3 weeks ago.

- I started becoming depressed last weekend again. Couldn't focus, couldn't do anything or focus on deadlines (I'm finishing my semester at uni) and started contemplating suicide. Had a mild breakdown.

- This weeked I had a major breakdown and I don't know how I can even be typing here. I'm very suicidal, 100% hopeless and once more, can't do ****.

So really, no one EVER experienced depressive episodes induced by lamotrigine? I'm having a hard time tracking if this is med interaction, lower dose of antidepressant, lamotrigine or a major mood swing.

(I just want to add that I have emotional deregulation and watched that freaking 7 episodes of "13 reasons why" this weekend. I absolutely have no clue of how influenced by it I am right now, but I'm NOT finishing it as it may have triggered me)

I would recommend at least calling your pdoc and letting him know what you are experiening. Maybe he can see you sooner.

I'll try to see him this week, but... insurance doctor. I don't even have his phone.

Wow. You can't call him? I guess I'm lucky with my daughter's pdoc. I have to leave a message but always calls me back the same day.

What is an "insurance doctor"? Why don't you have his phone number? I've never heard of any doctor not giving me their phone number.

I'm no pdoc but it sounds like the depression side of things isn't being addressed enough, Lamictal just stops the mood swings. I was on Paxil forever, that dose is way too low to be effective.

I hope you get a med adjustment soon.

The psychiatrist I'm seeing right now is one of those 15-min-appointments psyc from insurance. While he's addressing some stuff correctly, there's this downside and somehow I can't get his phone *sigh*. To be honest, I never asked, but I have this feeling he won't give me anyway, otherwise he would have offered me. This is very common tbh.

And thanks, I'm seeing him this week, hopefully. Maybe I don't notice depression from this lower paroxetine dose when I'm without lamotrigine because I'm hypomanic then.

Sorry, I still don't quite understand the 15 minute visit or no phone number thing, but maybe I'm in a different country. And I think I misread your original post asking for help - I thought you were depressed but you're actually dealing with the mania more at the moment, right?

No problem. And yes, it could have something to do with where you're from, though I hear these doctors are everywhere (I'm trying to see a new - and decent - one soon).

I'm depressed now. I was hypomanic bc I had ran out of lamotrigine and experienced the "high". Now that it's controlled, I'm very depressed again.

The dosage of lamotrigine (Lamictal) you are on is quite low. It needs to be increased very slowly and in order to find the right level it needs to be taken regularly. Mood stabilizers sometimes interact with anti-depressants and can increase or decrease the effects of them. If you can stay with the current dosages daily, it gives the PDoc a better chance at finding the right level.

My daughter was initially put on Lamictal when she was hospitalized last fall, but they were too aggressive in increasing her dosage (up to 300 mg daily within a week) and she got the rash and had to be taken off of it. Now she's on Tegratol and two anti-depressants.

I took Lamotrigine 100 mg x 2 year ago when I had hypomania and delusions and it never made me depressed, sometimes I took higher dose because it worked really weak for me, maybe because I didnt take anything else.

It never made me feel depressed, I didnt have any side effects. If you take so low dosage like 25 mg, I dont think it can make you depressed, maybe there is another reason or maybe you are not hypomanic anymore so you want to feel like this again and miss this feeling but 25 mg x2 is really low dose.

I've been on lamictal for 3 or 4 years now and while I don't notice any ill effects I also don't feel a lift from depression. I do notice that it keeps me from becoming manic while taking an antidepressant.

How are you doing now?

Thanks for asking. Last time I posted here I was in the middle of a depressive breakdown and so suicidal I told my parents I'd better go to the hospital or I'd do something silly over the night. Luckily, my boyfriend took me out for a car ride to calm me down.

After this I doubled my paroxetine dosage. I used to take 20mg before lamotrigine and now I think it was too low and I was getting depressed when I wasn't hypomanic. I'm still more down than 'ok', but at least I'm not suicidal. I'm only worried because after doubling the dosage I started having wild dreams everynight AND last time this happened it was the beginning of hypomania (induced by paroxetine). Keeping an eye on it for now, hope I can get these two balanced really soon.


tl;dr: Lamotrigine was NOT making me depressed.