Posted by med_empowered on November 15, 2006, at 14:39:34
In reply to Vision Problems on Trileptal?, posted by tgo on November 15, 2006, at 13:50:39
you might wanna do some blood work...trileptal can cause really low blood sodium (there's a technical name for this that escapes me at the moment), and the only way to see if that's happening is to do some blood work. Plus, you can test blood sugar and liver enzymes, etc. to make sure you're in OK general health.
If its low blood sodium that's causing this, I think you can just up your salt intake (your doc will know more), although you might want to discontinue the Trileptal. Lamictal helps some people with depression and bipolar; the titration is pretty slow, it doesn't play well with many other drugs, and it can (rarely) cause a deadly rash (small-scale rashes are pretty common, though); that said, some people find it quite helpful for treatment-resistant unipolar depression and for helping out the depressive end of bipolar disorder.
Have you tried BuSpar? It kind of sucks for its on-label use (Generalized ANxiety Disorder), but it can make SSRIs work better+faster. It might be able to boost the Prozac up to its prior level of effectiveness. I think you start @ 5mgs, 3X daily. Its not a mood stabilizer, but it does have some neuroleptic-ish qualities, so it might calm you down a bit.
Have you tried Klonopin? Some docs find that this helps with mood-stabilization and treatment-resistant depression. Its a benzo, and a controlled substance, so a lot of docs don't like to use it long-term but...it can be quite helpful for some people, and long-term use is apparently pretty safe (it keeps working, there's little indication of dosage escalation, etc.), so it might be an option for you. Plus, since its a benzo it works pretty fast, so you should know relatively quickly if its going to be of any use to you.
Good luck.
poster:med_empowered
thread:703925
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061110/msgs/703939.html