Posted by sweetmarie on April 15, 2001, at 7:20:48
In reply to Re: current Lamictal trials - JahL and Phillybob » sweetmarie, posted by SLS on April 14, 2001, at 20:44:32
> 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,And what`s that?
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 am going to make changes - Venlafaxine and Mirtazapine are to be added when I go into hospital next week (just as soon as I am `off` the Nardil, Valproate and Trimipramine that I have been uselessly taking for over a year).
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.
This is not going to be up to me - I will be under the care of a specialist, as I`m sure I`ve said. It will be up to him (and his cronies) to decide about medications etc. I don`t lke this scenario very much, but having agreed to be treated by him, I guess I must trust in his judgement (at least whilst I am in hospital).
Of course, the appearance and magnitude of side effects will enter as part of your decision making process.
No side effects (so far).
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.
Don`t be.
Anna.
poster:sweetmarie
thread:55442
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010411/msgs/59925.html