Posted by fuzz54 on September 8, 2006, at 13:53:44
History: I'm 29 years old and have had 4 or 5 major depressive episodes in the last 10 years. I've been diagnosed with dysthymia for the last 4 years, but I've always had a hunch that I might have a mild case of rapid cycling bipolar without mania. I've been on Paxil for a year and have been cycling from depression to normal mood on a 3 or 4 day cycle with no triggers that I can see. No mania or hypomania either though. The Paxil helps a little with anxiety and mood but does nothing for the cycling.
Finally I convinced my doc to try a mood stabilizer and Lamictal was the choice. I started off at the 25 mg dose and noticed a difference right away, which surprised me. I've been told that the therapeutic dose for most people is 100 to 200 mg. My emotional range was noticably squished at just 25 mg, but I had much less anxiety and no depression at all. I went up to 50 mg after one week and the emotional range was almost nothing. I was stuck in one emotional state: Bored, and unmotivated, but content. It was kind of awful since I could not react at all to anything happening around me since my emotional range was gone. I went back down to 25 mg and have been doing okay and trying to adjust to having less emotional range and trouble grieving about things and feeling sad about anything at all. I didn't realize that I need my sadness and grief just a little here and there to feel like a human being.
Has anyone else had similar experiences? It sounds like I'm a little more sensitive to this drug than most. I wish I could drop the dose down to maybe 15 or 20 mg since I think that would be optimal for me. Does anyone know if you can break the 25mg tablets in half? I'll ask my doc about this, but I'd be curious to hear from people who know about this drug.
Thanks!
Jake
poster:fuzz54
thread:684256
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060901/msgs/684256.html