Anyone Tried A Very Low Dose Of Lamictal?

[Nettis]

@PandaBear My side effects are also getting worse every day. Today I thought I was going to loose it. A lot of fear, crying spells and this horrible feeling in my head. Like if someone is blowing air into my brain and it's going to explode. I also have a son (lives with me every second week) and he's coming tomorrow. Need to function getting up at 7 o'clock, drive, cook, helping with home work etc.
If I felt sure the side effects would subside I could give it a try but now I feel so insecure since its getting worse and not better...

 

[joeylittle]

@Nettis - they aren't getting worse; the first 2 days when you felt nothing, that was the drug just starting to accumulate in your system. You're in the most intense period of it now.

This is what this drug does.

I'll tell you - I do wish you had been able to consider Abilify. It's not nearly this intense - at least, in my experience, having taken both.

However: you're on this right now. Stay calm. Don't panic - a lot of what you are experiencing is very possibly anxiety about the medication itself.

I'm only a person on the internet, and if you are experiencing anything resembling a rash (it generally appears on the arms), then you have a problem. Otherwise, you're having introductory side effects. I'm sorry they are so bad for you. What you are describing sounds very much like what I went through. I remember my psychiatrist told me to at least get to the 7th day, and see if the weird hollow-head feeling and the nausea went away. When I got to day 7, and it wasn't any worse, she encouraged me to get to 14. And around 9th, 10th day, things had calmed down.

Some people don't have a tolerance for this kind of medication, and that's a very real thing. All I can say, again, is that if you don't at least get through this first phase, you won't know if you failed the trial or not.

I am assuming your doctor went through this with you - but are you taking an oral contraceptive that has estrogen in it? And, I'm assuming (also) that you are not consuming any alcohol, even a small bit.

 

[Nettis]

@joeylittle
Thanks! I'm actually taking estrogen with my hormone treatment. And the doctor knows that. So I decided to discontinue the meds yesterday. I felt they were too strong for me, unsafe with something changing my brain that much neurologically on such a low dosage. So I based my decision more on that then if they would work or not. I prefer trying something less impacting. And as you said in a previous message, there are more medicines out there. I wanted to give Lamictal a try and even it was for a short time (5 days), long enough to feel that NO. I still feel very lost/groggy and outside of myself.

And what can I tell you about my doctor, he isn't really that experienced with patients like me. Hyper sensitive to meds. Tomorrow I will get a neurofeedback session... Lets see what happens. And, wow this drug was strong for me. I still feel out of it...

 

[EmmaOwl]

Finally, for some strange reason you can only try it once. If you try it, and then discontinue it, you won't get any efficacy out of it if you try again.

This isn't always true, but it can happen - and it's not only lamictal - as far as I know it's mostly SSRI's, and mood stabilizers that can present this problem. It depends on the person and the circs. My favorite writer went off his meds, then started them up again and ended up killing himself.
Wow that was blunt. Sorry. I guess it's good for people to see their dr's and not make med changes without consulting, etc etc.

 

[EmmaOwl]

I'm on 75 mg Lamictal extended release, which I thought was a low dose but apparently not. It helps me....

It's a low-ish dose. It depends on the person, depends on what you are trying to treat (e.g., epilepsy or mood swings)...and I had a third one but I forget. : I Oh. Depends on what other medications you might be taking.

I take 100mg twice a day. Almost no side effects that I notice. Though, for some reason my psychiatrist bumped me up to 200mg and that did not work out at all. Dizzy spells I think.

I was originally prescribed it for Bipolar type II, not for ptsd.

 

[EmmaOwl]

I take 100mg twice a day. Almost no side effects that I notice. Though, for some reason my psychiatrist bumped me up to 200mg and that did not work out at all. Dizzy spells I think.

Yep. Ugh. Coincidentally, I took 200 mg by accident last night and I felt groggy and terrible, yet did nothing to help my quality of sleep - same nightmares as any other night.

This is what happens when you are dealing with a shoebox...a BOOTbox full of medicine bottles. :( I try so much to be careful, but there are bound to be slip-ups occasionally. Even my pharmacy has messed up on occasion - it's a matter of percentages/statistics.

I DO use a pill minder-thing for mornings, because I am all groggy, but I fill it at the same time I'm taking my nighttime meds. The theory being, I'll be less groggy when my daytime meds may have worn off? I dunno. I hate it.

 

[Helent]

Hi, I'm new to this site. I have cptsd, being an adult child of an alcoholic, with a lot of childhood tr...

Hi, I was prescribed 25mg but I cut it into 1/4 first day or two then 1/2, but I cannot tolerate even the lowest dose. I felt like my head would explode from the inside out, couldn't sleep and was in a total fog. I only took it for 7 days but it has left me feeling 100% worse with heightened anxiety and depression. I too am super sensitive to these drugs.