Posted by Solstice on May 6, 2012, at 9:50:56
In reply to Re: reconclile - please read - Not to judge., posted by rjlockhart04-08 on May 4, 2012, at 14:59:57
> I am currely on Lamicital 50mg, I will ask about abilify. Thanks Scott.
>
> MattThat was a really good post by Scott, Matt. Did you just recently start Lamictal? I've seen Lamictal do wonderful things to relieve the kind of depressive symptoms you exhibit. It usually takes a higher dose,though.. and unfortunately Lamictal has to be titrated very, very slowly. I hope your doctor is in the process of titrating you upward to a therapeutic dose, and it can work very well with medications like Abilify, Geodon, Latuda, Saphris. There is a young person in my life, 23 yrs old, who I care a lot about. I think my interest in you might be because a lot of the symptoms you exhibit are very similar (except my young friend has not fallen into self-medicating). Anyway, he takes a very high dose of Lamictal - I think in the neighborhood of 800mg/day - split doses. He also takes Adderall XR for severe ADHD, and I think he takes low dose Zoloft. Bottom line, though, is that it was the high-dose Lamictal that hit the sweet spot for him. It relieved his obsessive thinking, his frequently erratic mood swings (like going from depressed, to inconsolable). And relief from those things made him feel more confident. He is somewhat learning disabled, which I think is the source of a lot of his own pain. He's had difficulty establishing relationships with peers because he's just not as sophisticated in his thinking as they are - yet he's certainly bright enough to recognize that he's not keeping up. Similar to what you describe, he will get in conversations with peers and find himself talking in circles - because he doesn't think fast enough to keep up - and also because when conversations get complicated he can't follow it. So he does what you do in order to try to avoid feeling humiliated, but ends up feeling that way anyway. Anyway, he's been taking medications over the years since preschool, and it really does seem that Lamictal has hit that sweet spot for him where he's more accepting of himself. He really is a very, very dear young man.. and he has suffered a lot of emotional pain because he has had such a hard time feeling like he cannot find where he fits - because he feels incompetent compared to others his age. It's been heartbreaking for me to watch. I'm just so happy to see and hear him sounding more at peace with himself, and I really do attribute much of it to the Lamictal.
And by the way, they do periodic blood levels on him because of his high dose, and his blood levels are fine. My understanding is that his metabolism might be responsible for him needing such a high dose to achieve therapeutic effect.
Solstice
poster:Solstice
thread:1017088
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120425/msgs/1017255.html