Lamictal - Uses, Side Effects, Interactions - Drug Factsheets

Just a bit more on Lamictal, so much affecting the med's they give us and in some cases it's the food we eat.



scroll down page of this link it just gives you drugs which interact not what they do - will get back with this one :-)

http://chealth.canoe.ca/drug_info_details.asp?channel_id=0&relation_id=0&brand_name_id=559&page_no=2

Looks like it is an anti-seizure drug. I am on Topamax, which is also anti-seizure.
Fingers crossed, so far it's helping to reduce the pain and frequency of the worst ones.

Again, thanks for posting that!

Risa

It is and it's used for migraine as well, quite a few seem to be used for different ailments


I'll see what I have on Topo

http://www.nhs.uk/medicine-guides/pages/MedicineSideEffects.aspx?condition=Epilepsy&medicine=Topamax&preparation=Topamax%20100mg%20tablets

Ok so here is my scary Lamictal story. My nuero put me on this to see if it would work as a preventative. First month ok, no problems, so he ups the dosage. About a week or so later I'm so nauseas I can't get out of bed. I go to see him (barely able to make it in with my husbands help). He says, oh that's just the migraine and so he ups the dosage some more. (I pretty much never get nausea with migraine). Of course this is no help, I'm still in bed, massive migraines many days (worse than they've ever been). After 2 weeks of this I finally get him to let me stop taking it, and we do a round of prednisone to clear out my system.

I'm still terribly ill. I can't eat any thing at all this whole time until the evenings. If I get up, I start retching. This lasted 2-1/2 months! I could not work, which is a real problem because I run my own business. My husband and my managers had to step in for me. What a nightmare. We did tons of tests and never found anything else wrong with me. I just had to wait for the build up of the Lamictal in my system to go away.

The migraines were terrible that summer as well, so it didn't help anything. The only good thing was loosing 15 lbs, but that's a tough way to do it. On top of all that I developed a very bad case of hyperaccusis from the Lamictal. I had to do an expensive TRT treatment to get rid of it, but it is still there a a lesser level. Basically noisy environments, particularly anything over loud speakers, will now trigger a migraine. As if I needed more problems.

So please be very very watchful if you are taking this. I also recommend you check out the migraine medication recommendations from the American Academy of Neurology. They took Lamictal (lamotigrine) OFF the list last year as being ineffective for migraine.

http://www.aan.com/press/index.cfm?fuseaction=release.view&release=1062

Oh that sound's awful, so many react differently.

I don't have any choice, it has to be lamical :-o Upto now I just have a few days when my brain fogs,
Can I make a suggestion - get your medical records.

Having got mine I was shocked at what they missed and the notes they left.
It's never what they tell you :-o

lolo I dozed off halfway reading Topo side effects

Thanks anyway

The trick is, start with the half of the smallest dose, stay on it at least two weeks longer than the drs advise, and see what's happening.
Luckily my dr, warts and all, wasn't all "shoot now ask later" type when it came to administering the Topo.
She was all fine with me starting cautiously , gave me as much time to adjust as I wanted, I have to give her that.
So I increased super slowly, each time lengthening the time between the higher doses.

And you are right, we all react differently to the same medication, so what may be good for me, may not be the case with you.
We all have to learn by trial and error, sadly, what helps us best. Eek.

Risa

I'm on a 6 month changeover regime, started on 50mg at night 2 wks later added 50mg in morn etc now on 100mg am & pm. Till I hit 300mg then it's 3 months to get me off the old drug :-)

You're right it has to be slow

Many years ago an arse tried to get me on epilim in 2 weeks !! I was a mess so happy to take slowly, but the side effects of my old drugs seem to e accelerating, brain not quite working how it should though I've not stripped naked and run down the road tossing flowers everywhere . . . .yet ! lol

I don't have any choice, it has to be lamical

I'm curious as to why that is. Do you need it for another reason? Or is it that your doctor is insisting you take it, because he's run out of other options, and you feel you don't have another choice? It just seems odd that you "have" to take a drug which has been shown to be ineffective for migraine. Is this doctor even up on that research?

Unfortunately doctors play quite the guessing game, with us as the guinea pigs. Truth is they have no idea what will work, and just try things randomly hoping something will help. We're the ones left to deal with the nightmare side effects and headaches in the mean time. I don't blame them for that so much, after all migraine research has been piddling and hasn't really given them any great solutions for the most part.

But we do need to be careful when doctors become very pushy with bad solutions, threaten us with "non compliant" labels, and are generally not receptive to our concerns and responses. It's too easy to play blame the patient when they are frustrated that they dont know what to do. I've learned this lesson the (very) hard way unfortunately.