Posted by Ilene on January 20, 2003, at 12:37:12
In reply to Re: Very Confused-need some advice » Peter, posted by Ritch on January 20, 2003, at 9:30:34
> > > Yeah, Iknow what you mean. Coming off the zoloft so fast really sucked-felt like when I used to experience withdrawl from all sorts of nasty street drugs. I got an email back from my pdoc tonight, and he said I shouldn't take the nortrip.-that my sudden mood cycling even after a period of improvement is normal, andI shouldn't be surpised by it atleast until we get up to a higher dose of lamictal. So, he told me to up the lamictal from 50mg to 75mg starting tomorrow. He believes in the antidepressant AND stabilizing effects of lamictal-that they're sufficient to render the med somewhat of an equivalent of taking a mood stabilizer + an AD, but with much less of a chance of (hypo)mania-switching. Your idea about some low-dose zoloft in the interim sounds extremely sensible to me, but he wants me off the zoloft now completely. It's just gonna require more waiting, and I gotta hang in there. Oh-another thing about coming off the zoloft-those crazy electric shock sensations up the arms and legs (in addition to all the other stuff). Crazy. And I thought zoloft was supposed to be the easiest of the sri's to stop-except for maybe celexa. Interestingly, I never had such problems stopping paxil, which I think is supposed to be the worst for withdrawal. Oh well; since we share similar symptoms, have you ever tried lamictal?
> > Peter
>
> Nope, I haven't tried it. I think I would need to be seeing a different pdoc to get that one. I have had a few allergic skin reactions to meds in the past and my pdoc is hesitant (and I am a little uptight about taking it as well). I take Depakote and the mix of Dep/Lamictal is the most troublesome. I want to continue the Dep., regardless, so that adds to the safety issue of it for me. I'm getting by reasonably well on what I am taking now, so I don't really want to rock the boat a whole bunch. Fortunately, my depressions are seasonal and predictable, but it would be nice to take a "mood stabilizer" that had as good an antidepressant response as lithium did. Can't take lithium anymore. Lamictal would be the next logical choice.
I'm new--this is my first post--but from my quick zip through these posts (sorry, not concentrating well right now)--I have some comments.I used to think I was just a treatment-resistant atypical depressive, but after reading up on bipolar II disorders I realize I have symptoms of "soft" bipolarity. Part of it is genetic (I'll go into this later if anyone is interested). Now I think SSRIs can be dangerous for some people and wonder if all those years on prozac, celexa, and some that I can't remember whether I actually took (zoloft? paxil?) made me worse. Prozac worked at first. It was great while it lasted. However, prozac threw a cyber-friend into psychosis.
So I think you shouldn't take SSRIs if there is *any *indication you are bipolar. It can be very hard to diagnose. You may not have overt mood swings. Dr. Phelps has a good site about this. (http://www.psycheducation.org/)
I was incapacitated for 3 days coming off Effexor. It doesn't seem that withdrawal from heroin could be any worse (don't know, never done it). Never had a problem w/ any other AD.
Now I'm doing 450 mg. wellbutrin, small doses of neurontin & amitryptyline at bedtime, and slowly increasing doses of lamictal. Tonight I go up to 100 mg. So far I haven't had any sides, but I'm not exactly the most functional human on the planet.
Oh yeah, I take 200 mg. provigil. Used to do dexedrine, but it eventually made me feel too disordered. Ritalin was the *worst*. It was like having squirrels in the brain.
BTW, wellbutrin (bupropion) seems to be the AD that bipolars tolerate well.
The horrible skin condition that lamictal causes is really really really horrible, but it's fairly rare. Also, use of lamictal as a mood stabilizer is still off-label AFAIK, and I think the dosages that epilectics (I think) use are much higher. I think.
poster:Ilene
thread:136494
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030119/msgs/136735.html