Posted by phidippus on August 19, 2012, at 1:34:47
In reply to Lamictal cognitive impairment reversible?, posted by thegron on August 18, 2012, at 18:17:32
Lamictal raped me over and over. It worsened my OCD and made my brain slow to a crawl. It took a month after stopping the medication to get back on track. I wouldn't pay much heed to the horror stories regarding permanent loss of cognitive ability as many are highly dramatized. Your mind will clear, but the key is getting back on track with treatment that is sensible-new treatment also increases the likelihood of reversing Lamictal's effects.
I've been battling anxiety for many years now and I hope I can point you in the right direction medicine-wise.
When battling anxiety, the key is understanding that serotonin plays a major part in anxiety-the less you have, the more likely you are to be anxious. Serotonin acts like a messenger to various parts of the brain that become activated and create anxiety, telling them to shut off. Increased serotonin also lowers Glutamate in the brain-glutamate is an excitatory chemical which causes anxiety, among other things.
To begin your battle, I would recommend an antidepressant as your first line of defense. I say first line because it is very common to have to treat anxiety with multiple medications. Once you have the foundation of an antidepressant, you have a wide variety of medications you can turn to to augment your treatment.
For anxiety I would recommend the following antidepressants:
Elavil
Clomipramine
DesipramineZoloft
Luvox
Paxil
Viibryd (my personal favorite because it is a 5ht1a partial agonist, which gives extra kick in treating anxiety)Mirtazapine
Once you have that antidepressant on board, you're going to have to wait a couple months for the drug to take full effect-while you're waiting, have your doctor prescribe you a long lasting benzodiazapine to fight off the anxiety in the meantime. I like Librium, Clonazepam or Valium.
You may find after a couple months your anxiety under good control, which means you may not have to switch up anything, maybe lower the dose of your benzo, but that's about it.
Of course, your choice in antidepressant might not be goodd enough, in which case you might have to go on a hunt to find the right one. This can be a painstaking process, but that's kind of how it goes treating anxiety.
If the AD and the benzo aren't treating your anxiety sufficiently, there's a line up of drugs that can help:
Lyrica
Prazosin
Keppra
Gabitril
Gabapentin
Clonidine
Buspar
TopomaxI hope this hasn't been to lenghty-I'm just hoping to help.
Let me know how things progress.
Eric
poster:phidippus
thread:1023607
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120818/msgs/1023639.html