Posted by chicklet on September 25, 2003, at 2:51:54
In reply to Re: How does lamictal feel and how much does it he » BarbaraCat, posted by nmk on September 24, 2003, at 12:34:08
Hi Nicole- I know youwere asking Barbara for advice but when i read your post I realized that we have a lot in common.
I've been on 500mg Lam for over a year now, and for a long time i had a Lamictal, Trileptal Prozac, Synthroid combo. working pretty well. I have a strong tendency towards the downs of bipolar and pretty much haven't gotten manicky since I was dx 16 years ago. So the fight for me has been the depression.The Lamictal was initially activating for me but it evened out with each increase. I'm not prone to anxiety (obviously-if I'm on Lam and Prozac), but i was taking Prosom to sleep at night. When the depression's bad, the sleep's bad.
But I had a recent dip in my mood that was reeeealy bad and I just knew this meant "Let's try___" because there's really no where else to go with my levels of each med. My doc put me on Provigil which is used for narcolepsy to promote "daytime wakefulness". Apparently they've seen some promise in it for enhancing the effects of some AD's and MS's and for actually having a mood lightening effect of its own. I take it in the am and within 30 minutes or so (i don't know what's 'normal') I feel nice and awake. During the 1st week on it, i got anxiety, but it went away. Well the point of all this is that the Provigil seems to be regulating my sleep...I take it in the am (kinda works like a cup of coffee), I'm not sleepy during the day, and then at night I'm good and tired and ready to sleep. Without needing a benzo or anything! Too soon to tell much else becauses it's only one week on it, but my mood has begun to improve as well. (it could be just a cycle...we'll see)...just thought I'd pop in and letcha know what seems to have worked well for me...
Barbara's already more than helped you with all of the other schtuff...Take care- and congrats on feeling better...oh yeah, and amidst all of your choices and questions coming up, make sure to sit back and revel in your new found good mood!
Karen
poster:chicklet
thread:261445
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030923/msgs/263118.html