Good? Bad? Side-effects? Works? Doesn't? My shrink was nice enough to place me on them, and I do want to have a general opinion of this medicine before I take it. I have never believed in taking medicine that is not natural... but desperate times require desperate measures.
I've never taken it before but here's a link I found for information on the drug from Drugs.com http://www.drugs.com/lamictal.html Hope that helps! Peace and love
You can also check out www.remedyfind.com and do a search for Lamectal. You can read posts from people who have experience with this or any medication. Lamectal is a drug that has been growing in popularity among psychiatrists to treat people with bi-polar disorder. It is an off label use of the medication so look into it for yourself and make your own decisions about it.
Thank you both kindly. Both links have been very beneficial. I started taking the medication, and I feel better already. The medication is not supposed to kick in, but the positive outlook and the placebo effect coming off believing in a better tomorrow do help me much.
I'm on it for seizures. The side effects are bad, headaches and pains. I don't know if they will last long but if they do I will stop taking it.
I was on it for 6 months for bipolar disorder and it worked like a charm. But one day i woke up with a rash and it kept on growing so i had to stop taking it. My advice is go up in dosing EXTREMELY SLOWLY to avoid this side effect; i missed a few days of it and i went back up to 200 mgs
I take Lamictal, Venlafaxine and Buspirone so I really couldn't tell you which one is doing what. I do have med resistant depression though. Since starting medication it seems as though the Lamictal brought me down so I don't have the mania but they are forever upping the dose or changing my anti depressants. How are you doing now?
One side effect of it that I experienced was hair loss. My hair fell out in clumps - literally. Luckily I have thick hair or people would have noticed - it got that bad! I cut my hair very short because I didn't know if the hair loss would stop - it just kept getting worse. But a week after I chopped my locks, I stopped taking it because of other side effects. Figures! Good luck with it! I don't take any psych meds at all anymore. But I understand why some people NEED them, even if it's short-term. And I know that some people really benefit when they're given the right one(s). OT: I was asked to take part in a research study for people who took certain medications and had reactions to them. They're trying to study DNA so that in the future, doctors will be able to prescribe the right med the first time. (Just psych meds, and I think they're all anti-depressants, but that's a start!) I'm not sure if I want to give up my DNA but I DO want to help the research...
It's supposed to be the best drug out there to treat bipolar disorder and depression. It is about the safest drug you can take while pregnant for such things. Causes less weight gain than most drugs do but is known to cause a strange rash, harmless naturally. It's a pretty amazing drug. I haven't tried it yet but if I have to start taking medication before the baby gets here for my bipolar I am definitely going to try for lamictal.
Lamictal does carry risks to the foetus. Some studies have shown that it increases the risk of cleft palate. Lamictal and the other mood stabilizers,not antidepressants, in FDA Pregnancy Category C: "Animal reproduction studies have shown an adverse effect on the fetus and there are no adequate and well-controlled studies in humans, but potential benefits may warrant use of the drug in pregnant women despite potential risks." For Lamictal, animal studies did not show a great deal of of danger to fetuses, but there was enough concern to warrant the drug's assignment to Category C. Following from: http://bipolar.about.com/od/lamictal/a/lamictal-rash-warning-plain-english.htm Lamictal - generic lamotrigine - is an anticonvulsant drug often used as a mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder. Unlike other drugs of this type that are used to treat both seizure disorders like epilepsy and also bipolar disorder, Lamictal has a black box warning on the prescribing information regarding serious rashes that can sometimes occur. The *official language of the Lamictal rash warning* is written in complex medical language. Here are the important points of the warning written in plain English. Lamictal may rarely cause serious rashes that can lead to hospitalization. In patients aged 16 and under, these rashes (including a potentially life-threatening rash called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome or SJS) occur in about 8 out of 1,000 cases. In adults with bipolar and other mood disorders, the rate ranges from .8 to 1.3 per 1,000 patients. (The rate is higher for adults taking Lamictal for epilepsy - about 3 per 1,000.) Another serious rash called toxic epidermal necrolysis or TEN sometimes occurs, but too rarely to estimate the rate. Deaths are rare are well, but they do occur. Besides age, other possible factors that may increase the risk of serious rash in patients taking Lamictal are: Almost all cases of life-threatening rashes associated with Lamictal have occurred within 2 to 8 weeks of the time the patient first started taking it. There have been isolated cases where the rash occurred after longer use, though, so you have to report any rash to your doctor no matter how long you've been taking Lamictal. Not all rashes caused by Lamictal are serious, but there is no good way to tell whether the rash is dangerous or not. This means you need to stop taking the drug immediately as soon as a rash occurs, unless you are sure it is not related to the drug - for example, if you know you got into some poison ivy, and even then you're better off contacting your doctor right away. Stopping treatment with Lamictal isn't enough. The rash could still become life-threatening, permanently disabling, or permanently disfiguring. The official warning ends here. But as you can see, the rashes that Lamictal use can cause are no joke. If you see a rash on your skin, stop taking Lamictal at once and contact your doctor. If you can't contact the doctor who prescribed Lamictal for you, call your family doctor or internist, go to an emergency clinic, or go to the nearest hospital's emergency room.
Lamictal was my 'Wonder Drug' I took it for almost 6-months and it was the best 6-months in my 20 years of life. I was never more stable and had never had more a quality of life with few side effects at first. The problem for me was that anytime during the first 6-months of treatment you have to be careful for any signs of a rash. This was what happened to me and I had to stop taking it and the rash did not appear for almost until the 6th month. I would not worry though the rash or fatal rash as they call it begins quite noticeable and for me it began on the back of my left and right thighs, the rash itself was complex and cemetrical or was the same pattern on both legs and in large areas. The good thing for you is that this only occurs in 1 in about 100,000 and I just happened to be one of the unlucky ones who had to discontinue treatment. I hope the Lamictal does wonders for you and your mood as well as your quality of life and just remember to watch during the first six months for any type of rash and if you get a rash make sure to see a doctor right away, I wish you the best of luck.
I've had very good results myself. Life is about enjoyment of interests without the fog of depression and mood problems. I use it in conjunction with cymbalta. I've been super steady on this regimen for years.
