Lamotrigine experiences anyone? Xx

It really is all a bit crap isn't it. I started quetiapine 19 years ago, and every since I've been hoping that the pharmaceutical companies would invent something better. This year I finally braved trying to switch off the quetiapine onto lamotrigine, which failed and then I tried lithium and that has failed as well. So I'm pretty much down to aripiprazole or valproate and I don't really fancy either. But equally another 20 years of quetiapine is really not going to do me any good at all, health-wise. And when we change meds, how the hell are we meant to know if things go wrong, is that the meds or the bipolar in general?

I'm sorry you went to such a dark place today- you need to ask for help- contact the psychiatrist.

I've been on it for years - bipolar. It's strange because I don't feel it does me any good as such, but when I've come off it, I feel the lack of it although not in any spectacular way! Very hard to describe. I still get extreme highs and lows though.

My sleep is awful and this thread is making me wonder if it's that . . .

Good luck with whatever meds you choose, it's so hard to find the right ones

I’m on 300mg of lamotrigine for bipolar. It’s hard to say if it helps because I’m also on lithium and aripiprazole but so far the combination seems to be holding me in a somewhat stable mood (I say that as I’m just coming out of a major down).

I was prescribed for mood disorder about 15 years back. Took it for months, there were only two noticeable effects IMO. I was mildly dissociative and felt a slight sedative effect. I didn't mind feeling a bit calm but the Alexithymia was disturbing and what ultimately made me come off it. The other effect was it gave me even more chronic and constant earworms than normal, and actually made the cacophony of racing thoughts and ideas even more pronounced, but I'm pretty good a filtering that anyway I just had to work a bit harder for a while.

I was prescribed for mood disorder about 15 years back. Took it for months, there were only two noticeable effects IMO. I was mildly dissociative and felt a slight sedative effect. I didn't mind feeling a bit calm but the Alexithymia was disturbing and what ultimately made me come off it. The other effect was it gave me even more chronic and constant earworms than normal, and actually made the cacophony of racing thoughts and ideas even more pronounced, but I'm pretty good a filtering that anyway I just had to work a bit harder for a while.

My wife had a psychotic episode linked to lamotrigine. Speak to your doctor just in case. It was quite severe and took coming off lamotrigine and going onto anti psychotics. A mental health nurse at the hospital said it is a rare reaction where people feel almost like they're living in a fairytale. Having said that, lamotrigine is a wonder drug for me so we're all different

It might be that making things feel worse then- I certainly start to feel shaken, spacey and absolutely poo if I don’t! so much so I can tell within a few hours if I’ve missed a dose.

What dose are you up to, if you don’t mind me asking?

Sadly, I developed severe nightmares, and then headed off into hypomania on it. But it was being combined with other meds, so that's a very personal experience. I hope you feel better soon x

It didn't agree with me when I was prescribed it following a tonic-clonic seizure 10 years ago. I felt dreadful on it. Permanently exhausted and drained, couldn't function. After a while I came off it without discussing it with my consultant (who was patronising, misogynistic and dismissive of all my concerns), and felt a lot better without it. Haven't had a seizure since.

It’s been utterly life changing for me- I often joke that you’ll have to prise that stuff from my cold dead hands! I take it for bipolar disorder, and it works really well to stabilise my mood.

I remember the titration up to a therapeutic dose being irritatingly slow. I’ve been on it now for nearly 15 years so I can’t really remember how long it took to really kick in; I seem to remember starting to feel better once I hit 100mg, and fully stabilised when I got to 200mg. My sleep was really bad when I first started it as I had hypomania so I can’t really comment on if it affected it, plus I’ve had lifelong insomnia to some extent or other. I’ve had some hair loss too, but given I’m also perimenopausal it’s hard to say whether lamotrigine is causing it. Sometimes I get slightly blurred vision, and occasionally night sweats; however again it could be perimenopause doing it as it’s got worse in the last year or so.

One thing that I do remember is my psych telling me that it has an incredibly short half life and until you stabilise it’s really important to take it at exactly 12 hour intervals; even now if I’m more than a couple of hours late with a dose I get a nasty shaky feeling along with numb face and lips- could something like that account for your shakiness?

I took lamotrigine for five years and felt so good on it for mood stabiliser. I’ve recently switched to lithium and wish I could go back. I did have insomnia at the start but it passed. Good luck with the titration.