Posted by redsoxfanatic76 on December 16, 2007, at 23:04:16
In reply to Re: lamictal and weight gain, posted by Rappy on August 31, 2007, at 9:24:20
> i have gained about 40 pounds on lamictal, including while on phase 1 of the south beach diet, and while training for and completing a 40-mile breast cancer marathon. what makes me feel particularly crazy is that until my weight got this high my doctors would just look at their literature and say 'it's not known to cause weight gain'. the last time i saw my shrink i said 'well, look at me.' and he finally admitted that i was one of three of his patients who had gained a lot of weight on lamictal.
Thank god I finally found someone who has the same problem as me. I tried pretty much every drug for depression prescribed by my general dr. for anxiety I was experiencing. Apparently, I was later told that people that actually have bipolar 2 and are taking antidepressants are subject to a violent mood disorder called Intermittant Explosive Disorder...anyways...i finally went to a mental health professional and was told I had bipolar 2 or a minor portion of it?? I was prescribed seroquel and lamictal. After 2 days, I was having some severe back pain so they took me off seroquel and then i was taking lamictal and abilify.After gaining 10 lbs a month for 5 months = 50 lbs...yes i know its alot..i finally said Ive had enough. I was happy at 245, but now i'm just at about 300 lbs and I am even more depressed now then when I started all this crap.
Dr. initially said it was abilify, so i stopped that and continued to gain weight. I went on slimfast for a month and walked 2 miles a day and still gained ten pounds??
So now they think its the lamictal. I'm tapering off that and having some severe back pain now. Was at 200mg now down to 100mg a day about to go lower.
I'm hoping it was the lamictal that was causing me to gain all the weight. I don't know how the hell I'm going to lose all of this weight now. Job and child dont leave me any time to hit the gym.
Also wanted to note, I definitly had sugar and carb cravings on lamictal. I craved food, especially sweets. I'm sure this had something to do with all of the weight gain. But to prove that it was the meds and not the eating, thats why I tried the slimfast for a month. Normally, if I were to walk 2 - 3 miles a day and seriously diet and do the slimfast thing, i would normally drop about 20 - 25 pounds in about 30 days. But to gain weight, that was odd...
poster:redsoxfanatic76
thread:474675
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071213/msgs/801221.html