Posted by LUKA62 on March 20, 2003, at 1:16:14
In reply to Lamictil is NOT a mood stabilizer » Krissy P, posted by BarbaraCat on March 18, 2003, at 15:33:44
> Krissy,
> I have to agree with Ron and Maximus here. You are not, I repeat not, on a mood stabilizer. Lamictal is tossed into that category because of it's anti-epileptic profile but it doesn't work well enough if you need something different. I know this well because I've been in a very similar place to you. I'm fine at 50mg lamictal and if I start increasing I get depressed. I'm on a tricyclic after being on all the SSRI's and SNRI's in the book. The only thing that makes everything else tie together and work is lithium. Without lithium, NOTHING works. Lithium alone does not work but it is a necessary part of my brew.
>
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LAMICTAL Is in fact For Me a very effective medication that has stabilized my moods for the first time in 20 years!! I've been on all the traditional mood stabilizers, newer meds when available and nothing was consistently effective.
Lithium was the first I was put on initially back in the mid-80's, and it was not helpful; tried others, Depakote, etc. and combinations; docs revisited some hoping it would be helpful. I was put on Lamictal 1 1/2yrs ago, staying on Neurontin. (I also take Nardil...which has been my best bet for depression.) I went off the Neurontin 9months ago. I have not been this stable ever before until the Lamictal. My therapist agrees.
I currently take 50mg 2x/day. Unfortunately, it seems to be the cause of some very troublesome GI problems that I never had before. I just had to put up with it because the trade-off seemed worth it. But 3 months ago when my doc increased the dose(doubling it) I immediately started having severe abdominal and chest pain, as well as terrible dental probs, we went back to previous dose. Since then though, I continued to have pain often, and severe; the past week I have had to have 4 diagnostic tests to see if there's something else going on. So far it just shows bad gastritis--doc did a biopsy of stomach...now awaiting results of abd.ultrasound and HIBA scan to check my gallbladder; I kinda hope that's what it has been; otherwise I may need to Stop the Lamictal afterall. I am SOO worried that may be case, because after all these years I just don't want to begin more trial and error games with meds. It's very distressing I am ready to quit; I don't think I can start trying other meds again.
I know Neurontin is also prescribed as a mood stabilizer, but not only did I believe it didn't help, I thought it was causing problems for me. I couldn't convince my old pdoc to take me off; I actually ended up taking myself off it, and now I see a new pdoc. It seems that quite a few of these meds, whether labeled as mood-stabilizers or prescribed as such, effect different people quite differently.
poster:LUKA62
thread:208531
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030319/msgs/210863.html