Posted by Scott L. Schofield on March 10, 2000, at 13:29:45
In reply to Re: Not many people on lamictal, posted by JohnL on March 10, 2000, at 4:25:51
> What's up with so few people on lamictal?? I and only a handful of people seem to be on lamictal. I would like to be able to see how they are doing on this med.
You have received a lot of good replies to your question.
I just wanted to add a few more comments.
I'm not sure to what degree clinicians are dissuaded from prescribing Lamictal by its potential to induce the rash-reaction. (By the way, is this an allergic reaction?) I have not heard of any occurrences of this when the prescribed titration schedule suggested by the PDR has been followed, although I imagine that they do exist. In fact, when this reaction appears as the result of too rapid a dose increase, the drug can be discontinued and successfully reintroduced using the more gradual schedule.
Lamictal has been used successfully alone as monotherapy for treating bipolar depression. Multicenter trials have demonstrated this consistently. These same trials have also established an average effective dose as being 187 mg/day. I think the range was between 50 and 300. For the small improvement it provides me, I need 300 mg/day. 200 didn't cut it.
Of course, it is also used in combination with other mood-stabilizing drugs. Depakote may be a good choice. As is very often the case with psychotropic drugs, there are people for whom Lamictal, as well as Depakote, produces negative reactions. They can feel worse for taking them, either as an exacerbation of depression or as a disturbance of cognition. Lamictal does seem to be pretty "clean" in most cases.
There is some support for its efficacy in treating rapid-cycling presentations.
I don't feel that there is enough reason to avoid trying Lamictal. It may be a necessary component to a treatment regime that can include antidepressants.
- Scott
poster:Scott L. Schofield
thread:26316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000302/msgs/26635.html