Posted by SLS on April 14, 2001, at 20:44:32
In reply to Re: current Lamictal trials - JahL and Phillybob » JahL, posted by sweetmarie on April 14, 2001, at 6:30:05
>
> How are you two doing on the Lamictal front?
>
> I`m up to my 3rd week on 250 mg and no change at all. Should I call it a day?
>
> Do you think you could you let me know please?
I lost my crystal ball last week, so any suggestion I may offer would be little more than a guess.I haven’t followed enough people as they progressed through their Lamictal trials to be confident enough to project an outcome. However, 200mg is sort of a “sweet-spot” for attaining an antidepressant response in bipolar disorder. I don’t know if the same thing is true of unipolar major depression. For epilepsy, the range promoted by the PDR is 300mg – 500mg. I need 300mg to get what I can out of it, although I really never “hung-out” at 250mg to see if it would stick. My impression of Lamictal is that if it is going to work at a particular dosage, 3 weeks at that dosage would be enough to evaluate its usefulness.
At some point, you may just want to make changes in your other drugs and keep taking Lamictal for a while. I would consider this a good idea if you are bipolar. Perhaps it makes sense to raise the dosage to 300mg now and give it no more than two weeks before making changes. Of course, the appearance and magnitude of side effects will enter as part of your decision making process. I wish I could be more confident in the range of experiences of people taking Lamictal to tell you that you have given it long enough. My gut tells me that you have sufficiently explored 250mg to make a change.
Sorry.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:55442
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010411/msgs/59878.html