lamotragine/lamactyl

[Woody]

PITA = Pain In The A

[A.E.V.]

after 6 months, I was still playing with doses on the Lamictal.
when I went up to 200mg, I thought I was going to jump right out of my skin!

I've never had sensitive skin before, but the Lamictal had me really itchy. since I've been off though, it's almost gone!

Anne.

[gtchamp]

I tried Lamictal once but it was such a low dose that we thought we would take me off it so that we could focus on the other drugs I am on. Right now, I am having a war on the amount of Epival that I am taking. I am on 2000mg a day. After blood work it puts me over the theraputic blood level. But they say, that is ok cause that is for Epileptics and this treatment is for Bipolar. I have blacked out twice and have many other side effects. I will be asking them to lower it. (for the 3rd time).

Ah but I digress. The conversation is not about Epival. Sorry I can't offer anymore info about Lamictal. I do remember when I went on it, that my pdoc told me to really watch for signs of skin irritation and if I noticed anything to get in right away.

Tracey

[paul m]

Hello Gtchamp. Epival was the best med I ever took for bipolar. I tried it twice, worked great each time. Unfortunately each time it also nearly put me in the hospital with very serious edema. It's a really rare side effect of that med. In fact the first time I got it my pdoc refused to believe thats what caused it and put me back on it. Sometimes I'm just lucky .Take Care. paul m

[Woody]

sorry off topic ... will just say this

Tracey, Epival is probably a good idea. Seroquel can lower your epileptic threshold and taking Epival would help compensate for that. I think you mention in an other post that you also have epilepsy on top of being BP. Now I take Epival, 1000mg/day but for me it is for BP. My understanding is that for epilepsy, you need more. Epival is like Lithium, you need to have your blood level checked. You know this. I do not know about you, but I find it very difficult to find out what the required serum/blood levels are suppose to be. I have found some, but they were not metric as our great nation uses.

The last time I asked my Pdoc about it, he gave me a number that did not make sense with what I had read online and when I questioned him further on the amount, he said that it was right in the middle and that is where we wanted to be and that we would check it again in 6 months. That will be in January now.

I have been taking it now since March of this year and some of the side effects have started to dissipate. The benefits out way the side effects big time for me so I cannot really complain.

[AJ]

I'm on Lamictal 250mg twice a day. My P.doc is talking about possibly increasing it. I'm tolerating okay. They do make a Lamictal 5mg tablet for pediatric use. Now that dosing increment would be ridiculous for adults.

When you're blacking out from Epival then they do need to re-evaluate things. What is the goal of treatment? Is it an approrpriate dose, for treatment and tolerance? What's the point of stopping seizures if you're going to fall down and crack your skull open? Sometimes a balance is hard to find. Doesn't mean we shouldn't keep at it until we find one.

[leila63]

Hi

I'm on 300 mg of Lamactil which, from what I have heard here, is a pretty fair dose.

On Friday night I fell asleep on the couch and missed my dose. Saturday am I passed out in the bathroom. Fortunately I was unhurt and I didn't even feel hitting the floor.

Just thought I'd pass the news along and for sure I'm not going to miss another dose again!

[Woody]

WOW glad you where not hurt Leila!

Good reminder that we should not play around with our meds!

[leila63]

Hi All

Just thought I'd pass along that I'd been having a lot of problems with my memory when I first started Lamactil.

I've been at my target dose about 8 weeks now and it occurred to me that I haven't been racking my brain to try to extract a name or to recall what errands I intended to do when I was out.

If someone is trying Lamactil and you're having problems with memory it may resolve on its own so I would encourage people to continue with a trial on this medication that seems to be working well for me.

The balance of my poor memory is no doubt age related. Now what did I want to say?????

[paul m]

Hello Leila63. Thx for that. A lot of meds can cause this. Often a side effect will pass, but it may take some time and be unpleasant in the short run. Many horror stories we hear are because someone did not give their body a chance to adjust to the new med.

My lithium/tegretol combo actually caused me to feel intoxicated when I first started it and I had to cut back (under docs advice) and ramp up slower. That feeling is fine for 24 hrs but after 3 days of not being ble to walk straight, all the fun goes out of it and it was time to talk to the doc. Take Care. paul m

[gtchamp]

Oh, I've been there too. Wacky side effects.