Posted by Ritch on February 25, 2003, at 9:46:21
In reply to Re: Lamictal and Pre-emptive Strikes, posted by colin wallace on February 25, 2003, at 0:21:00
> > >
> > Colin, I would go with the Tegretol add since you haven't tried that one yet. Teg is sometimes used successfully for treatment-resistant bipolar depression. I tried Trileptal recently and I felt a definite antidepressant effect from it, but I have a weak stomach and the stuff nauseated me badly. Just a tip-don't take much of it-it seems like if you take very much you dull out-just a little seemed to help with the "black-anergia" I can get from Depakote. Kind of similar to Wellbutrin, but much milder without any hostility or grouchiness. Oh, another idea here-what about some thyroid supplementation? I have yet to try it-pdoc is scared of it-I think it would be perfect for me (rapid cycling).
>
> Thanks Mitch,
>
> I'm glad you chimed in here, because your symptoms seem very similar to mine(as do your med. reactions).I think I'll try asking for Trileptal, but I won't hold my breath(dealing with a UK psych.- he'll probably prescribe 350mg Effexor for hypomania..)
> It seems Trileptal has less of a likelihhood for causing med. interactions(than Carbemazapine) too.Have you compared the two, or do they just 'feel' like identical meds??
> Can I ask what doses you took, and at what point did you become nauseated?I never tried Wellbutrin-it's not available as an AD here in UK anyway, but I'm almost certain it would zap me with more irritability.
> Thyroid supplementation interests me too,but I haven't looked into it in detail yet.
> What meds are you currently taking Mitch anyway, and how do you feel yourself these days?
>
> Cheers,
> Col.
>
> ps.Any thoughts on Topomax?
>
Hi Colin, I took Tegretol once a long time ago as a switch from lithium-but I only tried it a few days because it didn't seem to help me that much (didn't give it a fair trial). I knew a Navy vet in college (on disability) that was BPI who had been on high dose lithium for probably 20 years and he switched to it and liked it a lot because he said his "memory came back". Trileptal, I tried for the first time a couple of years ago when it first came out. I get an AD effect from it but I got the nausea when I hit 225mg and when I went up to 300mg it became intolerable. I retried it again at the start of my seasonal blue spell back in December and I got the AD effect again-and got the nausea again. But I still got some benefit from 150mg/day as tiny as that sounds. I tried it on its own (w/o Depakote) for a couple of weeks very recently and the Dep. removal made me VERY uptight. Couldn't handle it. So, I just quit the Trileptal and went back on Dep., anxiety went way down, but now I am feeling off/on black/blue spells again and my cycling is aggravated a little more but I'm NOT angry. OK-I know this is complicated! The Depakote seems to defnitely help anxiety and REALLY gets rid of my temper spells. The Trileptal seems to be more effective for depression and reducing *CYCLING*, but it makes me want to barf! So, right now I'm on Depakote 250mg, Klonopin .5mg, and a *pinch* of Effexor in the morning (prob. about 9mg or so), with 500mg of L-tyrosine and about .7G of EPA. The Effexor quashes the Depakote induced black spells (always in the evenings-mornings are great) to some extent, but for it to work well I have to take a little more and that *little* extra will wreck my sleep and upset my stomach. I haven't heard of anybody else complaining about nausea from Trileptal-I'm just stomach sensitive to any med it seems. Topamax? I found it great for sleep and pretty decent for anxiety, but I had a major problem with forming thoughts and forgetting people's names. I would be talking to somebody I knew rather well for about ten minutes and spend half the time trying to remember what their name was! I know this doesn't sound that positive, but everybody reacts to a lot of this stuff so differently.---Mitch
poster:Ritch
thread:203376
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030224/msgs/203682.html