Posted by Cece on February 16, 2001, at 0:09:33
I want to share my experience with lamictal dosing.
I am on quite a mix of meds, developed over the last 7 years, for treatment resistant bi-polar II- including 250mg/day Depakote, 1200mg/day Neurontin, .125mg clonazepam (yes, I chop .5mg tablets into quarters!), 40mg/day nortriptyline, and 2mg/day xanax. As you can see, in some cases I've found that a smaller dose may work better for me than a larger dose- I'm pretty sensitive to med effects, both positive and negative.
I started lamictal about a year ago after resisting trying it out of fear of "the rash", but depression is a real problem for me, and I needed more stabilization. My doctor introduced it into my regime VERY slowly- much more slowly than I have seen anyone mention here. I have increased over the last year in increments of 6.25 to 12.5mg, every 2 weeks, to my present dose of 125mg/day. Even at those small increases, I often experienced flushing, energy loss, and GI disturbances the second or third day after an increase. If I had followed the PDR plan for dosing, I am sure that I would have had intolerable side effects. The side effects I did experience were mild, and they passed in a day, and from early on I found lamictal to be quite beneficial in improving the quality of my mood. I'm staying at 125mg for the time being.
I'm new to this site (since it was "remodelled"), and just beginning to explore all the information and experience available. I'm interested to have read also that other people have found Neurontin and Nortriptyline to be helpful in controlling fibromyalgia. I used to have hideously disabling bouts of it, and now have only occasional, very mild flare-ups.
poster:Cece
thread:54122
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010212/msgs/54122.html