Posted by psychosage on July 13, 2006, at 23:40:14
In reply to Switching from Depakote to Lamictal, posted by greywolf on July 13, 2006, at 10:23:52
> Hi everyone. Been off for a while working on work and my life. Trying to get some control of this BP and OCD.
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> Started seeing a CBT specialist in OCD treatment for the first time (the others, years ago, were generalists). Also got in to see a new psydoc who other docs say is the expert in our area regarding pharmaceutical treatments. So, at least things are in progress and I'm not treading water anymore.
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> The plan is to get the bipolar under better control before adding in meds that can help with the OCD. Right now I've finished several weeks of Depakote ER 1500mg/day (apparently a middle of the road dosage), and I continue to take Xanax up to 4mg/day.
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> I had my blood work done yesterday, and my doctor wants me to stop the Depakote so I can switch over to Lamictal this weekend (once he confirms that I had a Depakote blood level that was sufficient for therapeutic relief, but wasn't providing it, justifying the change in meds). My BP is dominated more by depression, which the Depakote isn't helping with, and he thinks Lamictal will help there.
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> I'm starting at 25mg/day, ramping up to 100mg/day. He'll see where I'm at at the next 6-week appointment, then will probably take it up to 200mg/day before adding in a med for the OCD.
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> I've read some pretty bad things about Lamictal making people ill. I'd like to know what it's reasonable to expect during the initiation period, not worst case scenarios. Anyone got thoughts on this?
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>
It didn't make me tired until I hit 200mg, and it started to feel like an antidepressant immediately. You might feel a bit of activation. It made me a little hypomanic at first. I didn't leap from 100 to 200mg. I went to 125, 150, 175 for a week each.The usual complaints are headache, dizziness, and perhaps some general itchiness which I had a few times, but no rash.
I think the bad reports were from people who could not tolerate it, but I think a lot more do better with Lamictal side effects than with Depakote. If you don't get a rash then you have a large chance of benefiting from it.
poster:psychosage
thread:666669
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060709/msgs/666928.html