Posted by bleauberry on September 4, 2009, at 20:12:48
In reply to Lamictal 1 month on, posted by cactus on September 3, 2009, at 1:15:35
I think the previous post of alchemy was quite telling. Excellent take.
I'm sorry, I mean no disrespect. You have to highly respect anyone who has gone through 8 years of schooling, years of residency, and then specialty training. But when I see a doctor who takes into account that his patient has had very bad experiences with reuptake inhibitors and of all the choices available makes a choice of a reuptake inhibitor, I just shake my head in amazement. I cannot understand that kind of non-logic no matter how hard I try. All those years of specialty schooling, and somehow along the journey the gift of logic was lost.
Clinical studies. It is hard to find the detailed statistics of patients who got worse on meds. The few I have found indicate something in the 5% to 10% range. Most abstracts of studies lump them into the category of "discontinued due to side effects or inefficacy", but without the full detailed report, you can't see that some of them deteriorated on the med above and beyond issues of side effects. Hey, depression and irritation are just two of the things listed on Lamictal's label side effects as things that happened during clinical trials often enough to warrant printing. Does every doctor think, "Oh, that only happens to other patients, not mine."?
Your gut instincts are your best guide. Even below your conscious thought levels, your body knows what is right or wrong. If you are feeling reuptake inhibitors and lamictal are wrong, those feelings have to be considered and respected.
I've been off meds for three years now. A few mini-trials of days or a couple weeks scattered in there. I am not well or I wouldn't be here. But I am well enough to get by without meds. With those kinds of eyes, what I see here a very lot is people getting in deep water with meds that are: not working; making them worse; piling another med on top of one of those; and wondering the whole time why they aren't getting better and what the next med should be to yet add another to the whole darn debacle. Blows my mind to witness it day after day. The unfortunate thing is that those who are in that deep water cannot see it happening and actually deny it is happening. I've been in that deep water and I know what that blindness is like. Very deceptive. Very often when people ask, "Why is this happening to me?", the answer could likely be, "It's the meds".
Thankfully there are far more people helped by the meds. They are usually not found at psychiatric forums because they have no need, things are going ok. They outnumber us here. Pbabble is a different population.
With a history of 3 or 4 med failures or bad reactions, my personal opinion is that it is extremely reasonable to abandon the whole "new drug" philosophy and go back to the gold standards. Parnate, Ritalin, Amitriptyline, Nardil.
I wish I had something of suggestive value for you. All I can say is I totally disagree with the doctor's approach. I fear it getting you into more trouble, and I am suspect of the lamictal the same as you are. If it had shown at least a hint of something good at this point, maybe, just maybe, I might give it the benefit of the doubt.
poster:bleauberry
thread:915533
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090902/msgs/915765.html