Posted by Tomatheus on February 15, 2014, at 15:13:13
In reply to Lamictal Higher dose causing anger and depression, posted by Quietly_Existing on February 15, 2014, at 13:55:47
Hello Quietly_Existing, and welcome to Psycho-Babble. It sounds like your experience with the trial-and-error approach that modern psychiatry uses in the treatment of mental illness has been largely unsuccessful, at least so far. Unfortunately, I can relate, as I believe some others here can. It's got to be frustrating to experience depressive symptoms that you find to be overpowering when you're not taking any medication only to find the medications that are typically prescribed for those sorts of symptoms (antidepressants) to not only be unhelpful but to cause all sorts of other problems (mania, mixed states, psychosis).
With the problems that you've had with antidepressants, your decision to try Lamictal seemed sensible, given reports that the medication seems to be helpful for bipolar patients that struggle to a large extent with depression. Unfortunately, medications don't always affect people in the ways that the experts would expect that they would, and it sounds like this is the case with you and Lamictal. So, should you try increasing your dose? I tend to think that as long as you find the medication tolerable and that your depression and anger aren't too overwhelming that it would make sense to work your way up to 200 mg, just to see how it will affect you. I tend to think that in all likelihood, you'll probably notice the same sorts of effects that you're experiencing now, only more intensely, on higher doses of Lamictal, but sometimes pleasant surprises can happen with dose increases.
If Lamictal doesn't work out for you, there are probably other medications that you can try, and my guess is that other members here will be more than willing to give you suggestions on which medications might be the best ones to try next. One of the other anticonvulsant mood stabilizers would probably be what I would suggest trying next, as far as psychiatric medications are concerned.
But what I would like to stress more than anything else is that even though psychiatric medications help a lot of people, I think that others (meaning those who aren't largely helped by psychiatry) need to explore options outside of the psychiatric medication box if they want to get truly well. If you haven't already done so, I would recommend getting some blood-work done to see if perhaps treating something that can be detected with a blood test might improve your symptoms. Tests for thyroid hormones, vitamin D, and vitamin B12 are some of the first tests that I can think of that might be relevant, but there are likely others that might reveal something that could be contributing to your symptoms, as well. I saw an orthomolecular psychiatrist last year, and she ordered several tests, and basically what came back was that my vitamin D level was insufficient and that I had a mild "pyrrole disorder." I became frustrated with vitamin D3 seemingly worsening some of my symptoms, so I stopped supplementing with it for a while, but I'm supplementing with the vitamin again in hopes that it will do something if I stay on it for six months or longer. And from what I've read from the scientific literature, I think it's likely that if I do benefit from vitamin D3 supplementation that it will probably take a while before I see the true benefits.
It could be the case that your vitamin D level might also be low and that supplementing with the vitamin might help to relieve some of your symptoms, or it might be the case that a thyroid disorder or something else that could be detected with a blood test might be contributing to your bipolar symptoms, but unless you get some testing done (and that's assuming that you already haven't), you won't know for sure if that might be the case.
I, of course, cannot guarantee that by following what I suggest, you'll figure out what's wrong with you and find a treatment that's truly effective, but it sounds to me like it at least wouldn't hurt to try supplementing psychiatry's trial-and-error approach with something different. And "something different" could mean taking an orthomolecular/nutritional approach, it could mean simply seeing another doctor and asking what tests he or she might want to order, it could mean participating in some psychotherapy alongside the psychopharmacological approach that you're currently using to treating your bipolar disorder, or well, it might even be something else or some combination of what I've suggested. That's not to say that I think you should necessarily abandon psychiatry, but I think that your chances or getting well would be best if you at least also look at other options.
I wish you luck in finding something that works for you, and finally, I wish you the best.
Tomatheus
Has an affective psychosis with strong symptoms of fatigue, hypersomnia, and difficulty concentrating
Taking Abilify & supplements
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1060718
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140214/msgs/1060722.html