My daughter is currently taking a combination of depakote, lamictal, and abilify for a mood disorder. However, her doctor feels the overwhelming problem with her is an anxiety disorder that is not being addressed by the current meds.
The doctor wants to ween her off the lamictal completely and start her on klonopin wafers. I am concerned about the "drowsiness" side effects. Do these eventually go away?
I've been on Depakote and Seroquel for bipolar and not improving much, so today the doc took the depakote away and is starting me on Lamictal. Can anyone share your experiences with it? He told me it should not give me the weight gain or fatigue, and the only thing I need to watch for is if a rash develops on my body to let him know immediately, as it could be serious enough to land me in the hospital. Other than that, does the lamictal really have relatively few side effects?
Please be sure not to make any changes in the medication dose
without your psychiatrist's express permission and supervision.
The side effects you are describing can occur as an adverse reaction to Lamictal but it also could be a matter of interactions
with the other medications. What might be going on could have a variety of causes. Its also important to think whether it has helped you or not.
Hello there, I've recently started on Welbutrin (forgot dosage, but it's small) and I've had some surprising effects.
First off, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a year ago and ADD about two months ago. I take lamictal 300mg along with the welbutrin. The welbutrin was prescribed to treat my ADD. Not long after starting I experienced this great emotional change. I realized that I was just not having "extreme" emotions anymore. I haven't felt like this since...ever.
However the tremors are still there as well as extreme sweating, and muscle tightness. (I have been on this dose for approximately 2 weeks.
Hi Torrey -- Do Not Stop Taking Any Of Your Meds. that's very dangerous. Go to the ER with your meds, doses, and a list of docs, and have them contact your pyschiatrist and GP. Don't screw around with any of these symtoms. You didn't say how much lithium you're taking, but it could be a nasty toxic lithium reaction. Stop reading this and GO GO GO to the ER.
s their decision as regards side effects. One week is not enough time to see if it worked though and some side effects get better after time. You'd have to discuss that with your psychiatrist though. As regards Abilify if it worked for you then that's fine. Antipsychotics can cause prolactin elevation which drops sex drive but Abilify is the least likely to cause this. Its generally more of a nuisance than anything but each person is different in their reactions.
I did have some heavy side effects from Lamictal when I started it but they went away in time. I am not sure if all those side effects are from the Lamictal but you should definitely discuss them with your psychiatrist and you could look on the medication website as well and ask your pharmacist in the meantime for more information.
My titration was slow, reaching to 200mg. All along the way I had bad side effects that did not go away with time. We tapered back down and the side effects are almost gone. We have one more taper, to a dose of 125mg. Our bodies really do react diff to diff drugs. Some more sensitive than others. Sometimes very small doses work for people. I don't know if you felt better and had no side effects on 25mg and everything changed at 50mg.
Thanks for writing and answering my question. I did get a starter kit, and I finally took the first dose of Lamictal, and the side effect of being really, really drowsy wasn't bad, I knew that it would go away soon, but the other side effect I has stopped me cold, and i won't take it again. It made my heart beat really rapidly and pound, it felt like, out of my chest. THAT, I cannot handle, so back to the doctor I go.
Has anyone else had this side effect?
- I looked up lamictal and sure enough there it was. Your body starts having REALLY bad side effects when it detects an OVERDOSE. I called the doctor and sure enough - he gets on the phone with me - we talk. I would take the medicine and fine, then when it starts being absorbed all hell breaks loose. I stayed off the medicine for one day - went back on the next day at 300 mg.
You probably already know lamotrigine (Lamictal) works better for the depression side more than the manic side. So this is why I think the lithium/lamotrigine combo is good, because you get the antimanic effect (which you don't get with lamotrigine) and the antidepressant effect (which, according to some MDs, you don't neccessarily get with lithium, and without the risk of going manic).
ve been on Wellbutrin for 4 weeks now and my sexual side effects have not subsided. I specifically chose to take Wellbutrin because of its reputation for rarely causing sexual side effects, because even while depressed I had a pretty healthy sex life. However, I recently read that studies have shown that, although less common than with SSRI antidepressants, Wellbutrin can cause sexual side effects, such as decreased libido and impotence.
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