# Lamictal Side Effects



## hd83 (Jan 10, 2006)

For those of you who have taken Lamictal, what were the side effects you experienced & did they go away after you got off of the drug (if you did)? I'm seriously considering taking Lamictal with my Effexor & Klonopin so any information you could share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Heather


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2006)

When i went up to about 250 mg, I couldnt sleep. I had this really kind of "wired" feeling and it was impossible to fall off to sleep. It was really distressing, so i decreased to 150. Also, at high doses it caused me to have muscle weakness. LIke i would be in the gym and be lifting weights and my muscles would just give out on me. It was really frustrating. So its good in low doses.

Eros


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## pfpc (Aug 22, 2004)

Eros said:


> When i went up to about 250 mg, I couldnt sleep. I had this really kind of "wired" feeling and it was impossible to fall off to sleep. It was really distressing, so i decreased to 150. Also, at high doses it caused me to have muscle weakness. LIke i would be in the gym and be lifting weights and my muscles would just give out on me. It was really frustrating. So its good in low doses.
> 
> Eros


I had the opposite feeling. I got up to 100 mg and couldn't stay awake. Thereafter, I just came off of the stuff.


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## F'd (Apr 9, 2005)

im at 200mg for a while now and i dont feel anything good or bad big disappointment


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Sorry to hear that, F'd. Give it a little time, though. As I told Kelson, the one study followed people with it for 16 months, and it was only then, combined with an SSRI that improvement was shown. I beleive this was the anecdotal study done in London. I recently had a discussion with someone who pointed out that Dr. Simeon performed a double-blind placebo controlled study which found it had no significant effect on DP, but this isnt why I recommend it. I recommend it because out of all of the anticonvulsants (which are the class Dr. Amen recommends), it has the least side effects and a small antidepressant effect. Its the only anticonvuslant that doesnt have any sexual side effects. There's always Tegretol, if your brave....That'll calm down the temporal lobe of an elephant. Its also quite good for those with violent thoughts.

Peace
Homeskooled


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## [rula] (Jan 16, 2005)

When I went up to just 75mg I started to feel my initial (much worse) DR back. great! physically I feel ill, nauseous, dry mouth, chest pain and sharp stabbing stomach aches (of course my psych says it can't possibly be the Lamictal causing that.) But, the recent swollen lymph node is making me worry the most so I'm considering dropping it and maybe switching to Trileptal (if not stopping AED's all together), esp when I read about other people hitting the target dose and not feeling any improvement from it.

-r


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## Neko (Feb 18, 2006)

I've only been on 100 mg for about a week, but it seems to fatigue me. I'm hoping this effect goes away with more time on this dose. My skin was also itchy on my hands and wrist and I got tiny red bumps, but that went away in like a week.

As for its effect, I need to give it way more time. My Celexa didn't do much until I was on it for a good month and a half. I imagine lamictal will take even more time to work.


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## none (Dec 29, 2005)

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## nayashi (Sep 4, 2004)

My brother just started on it, and this is what he told me:

"instead of getting nonfunctionally depressed periodically, which only hurts me, I get really angry and resentful and bitter, which hurts everybody"


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## revdoc (Jan 2, 2005)

I have benefited greatly from this drug. I think it irritates my seborrheic dermatitis, and it can annoy the skin, at least in the early stages. If you get a full-blown rash, you will be taken off it, because there is a tiny chance that it is a sign of a severe allergic reaction. Since the dosage increase rate has been slowed down (after the the much faster rate in the initial trials, which produced some of the vague accounts of frightening results you may have read about), it seems to me a relatively safe drug.
I take 250mg a day and it has helped give me space in my mind and be more open to the world. So it helps. This is after 30 years of chronic depersonalisation. 
I've experienced no other side effects. I take it with 60mg Citalopram a day.


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