childishbranzino: Lamictal and Abilify

[childishbranzino]

Will do. And yeah I made a liquid suspension. 5 mg per 100 mL, 10 mL doses 

[childishbranzino]

Is there any reason I should be worried about cutting my dose in half instead of reducing by tenths?

[childishbranzino]

3/21

12:20 AM took Lamictal 0.25mg and melatonin 300 mcg

9:00 woke up completely derealized, could barely feel the passage of time

That feeling persisted all day

11:45 took 0.25 Lamictal 

11:55 headache intensified

 

3/22

12:30 took 300 mcg melatonin

9:30 woke up exhausted, derealized

6:30 have been feeling even more slow, typing is difficult

 

3/23

12:40 took 0.25 mg Lamictal

10:00 woke up feeling confused

Depersonalization lasted all day

Developed a headache at night

 

3/24

12:30 took 0.25 mg Lamictal

 

3/26

3:30 AM took 0.25mg Lamictal 

4:30 PM feeling more confused than ever, very anxious 

 

3/28

12 am took 0.25 Lamictal and 300 mcg melatonin

1:00 neuro anxiety/Terror so bad I couldn’t sleep

11:00 concentration worse than ever, brain feels like it’s boiling, severe anxiety

[childishbranzino]

I missed a couple days worth of logs but I did take the Lamictal those days. My cognition has been so bad that I haven’t even been able to record my symptoms some days. I can’t think at all anymore. 

[childishbranzino]

3/31

12:30 am depersonalization, loss of coordination, extreme confusion

1:15 took 0.25 mg Lamictal 

 

4/1

12:30 am took 0.25 mg Lamictal 

1:30 took 300 mcg melatonin 

5:30 pm more confused, depersonalized than ever, anxious, severely depressed, can’t concentrate at all

[childishbranzino]

Things just keep getting worse 

[Altostrata]

What keeps getting worse?

 

I'm very confused. What is your Lamictal schedule? Please take the same amount at the same time each day and keep notes about what happens.

 

What is your sleep schedule? Do you have trouble sleeping?

 

Please take the same amount of melatonin at the same time each night. 8 p.m. is  a good time, then turn off the lights and get off the computer. The dark will help your nervous system get oriented.

 

Let us know how you're doing.

[childishbranzino]

It’s mostly the confusion, memory problems, concentration that keeps getting worse. To the point where it’s become difficult to carry on conversations with people or read. Sometimes it’s so bad that I can’t recognize objects when I’m looking at them. It’s really hard to describe but it’s debilitating. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I can’t function normally. My therapists think I might be schizophrenic. 

 

I started taking 0.25 mg instead of 0.5 on 3/21, between about 12:20 and 12:40 every night. 

 

Sleeping has been a problem. I don’t have a consistent sleep schedule. The last several days I’ve been waking up after noon no matter how early I fall asleep but the week or so before that I was waking up around 9 and not able to fall back asleep. I can definitely try taking the melatonin (and the Lamictal) earlier but 8 pm is too early. 

[Altostrata]

Are you worrying about your symptoms? That can make them worse.

 

You've been through a lot, your nervous system needs to rest. Meditation can help, see

 

Non-drug techniques to cope with emotional symptoms

 

Easing your way into meditation for a stressed-out nervous system

 

Music for self-care: calms hyperalertness, anxiety, aids relaxation and sleep

 

Ways to cope with daily anxiety

 

Melatonin works best in darkness. What time of night can you turn off the lights and unwind before sleeping? That's when you should take melatonin. It may not make you sleepy immediately, it primes your natural release of melatonin.

 

Also see Tips to help sleep -- so many of us have that awful withdrawal insomnia

 

What is the sleep cycle?

 

Melatonin for sleep: Many people find it helpful

 

TV or computer use in evening can disrupt sleep: Bright light signals the brain that it's daytime

 

What schedule can you commit to for a couple of weeks?

[childishbranzino]

I’m not really sure how I can not worry about my symptoms. They make doing even the most basic things really difficult and it seems like things are getting harder every week. I can barely even form coherent thoughts anymore. It’s like I’m waking around with a permanent concussion. Which is inherently very stressful ofc. I can try meditation though, and I think I can manage taking the melatonin around 11

[childishbranzino]

How long do I need to keep taking this dose?

[childishbranzino]

Symptoms have been so bad this week that I haven’t been able to keep a log. It’s been all I can do most days just to get out of bed and make sure I’m eating enough. A few times now I’ve had periods where I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep. Memory and concentration are by far the worst they’ve ever been. 

[childishbranzino]

How much longer should I stay at 0.25 mg before I reduce again? 

[childishbranzino]

Would it be safe for me to reduce my dose by half again? From 0.25 to 0.125?

[childishbranzino]

Symptoms just keep getting worse. Confusion, depersonalization, headaches, etc 

[childishbranzino]

Anyway I want to get back off the Lamictal as quickly as possible. How soon can I reduce the dose and by how much? You suggested a 50% reduction before from 0.5mg to 0.25. Would another 50% reduction be safe? Or should I make a smaller one? Or should I just stop taking it altogether?

[childishbranzino]

My symptoms are so severe that I can’t function anywhere close to normally. I need whatever help I can get. 

[Monty95]

Hi, I can’t give you any advice about the dose reduction but I just wanted to let you know I’m in a similar position in terms of symptoms and that I think I can understand some of what you’re going through. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced but I think it gets better. Please try to hang in there and not to panic about your dose, I’m sure one of the moderators will have some good advice for you soon. This will be the most difficult time in your life by far & when it improves uou’ll never have to go through anything like it again. Try to stay strong and wait it out, I know it’s hard!

[childishbranzino]

I reduced my dose to 0.2 about a week ago. Right now the plan is to reduce by .025 mg every other week starting next week until I’m completely off of it, but I’m open to other suggestions. 

[childishbranzino]

If it’s safe I’d like to be off much sooner than the eight weeks from now that puts me at but I don’t have enough information to be comfortable going any faster 

[childishbranzino]

Just realizing that 0.025 every other week would be sixteen weeks to 0

[Altostrata]

Please describe your symptoms in more detail. I don't know what "concussed" means. It appears you're sleeping okay. Not sure what's going on.

 

Overall, are you feeling better or worse since you reduced lamotrigine? After you take lamotrigine. how do you feel?

 

It looks to me like you might have been doing better when you were taking 0.5mg per day, but you did not give it a fair trial.

 

It would have helped a lot if you had taken lamotrigine more consistently and given us your sleep schedule in your daily notes as well.

 

[childishbranzino]

I’ll go line by line

 

When I say “concussed” I mean the symptoms feel like how I felt when I had a concussion as a kid. Basically extreme confusion, disordered thinking (ie intrusive thoughts that don’t make sense), memory loss, fatigue, and headaches.

 

Re sleep I’m basically getting enough sleep every night thanks to the melatonin. Solid 6-8 hours, usually closer to 8. 

 

Overall I’ve felt worse and worse since I started taking the lamotrigine. I started feeling worse when I first started taking it and each reduction has made things worse still. There hasn’t been any improvement in my symptoms. It’s just been a straight shot downward. I don’t think I feel much different in the hour or so after taking the lamotrigine before bed than I do before taking it aside from the sleepiness and increased headache I get from taking the melatonin at the same time. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t having any effect I just can’t really tell. 

 

I was definitely doing better at 0.5 than I am now, but again at 0.5 I was still significantly doing worse than how I was before I started the reinstatement in the first place. Which isn’t to say that I regret taking the chance. I knew it might not work when I started. And maybe I didn’t give it a fair trial, but the fact that I had such a negative reaction in the first place and the subsequent reactions to the reductions kinda says to me like reinstatement isn’t going to work for me. Which makes sense cuz it had been nine months since I came off lamotrigine by the time I started the reinstatement back in March. 

 

Re: consistency, so far I haven’t missed a dose since I started reinstating. Lately I’ve been consistently taking my dose of 0.2mg around 12-12:30 at night along with 300 mcg of melatonin and falling asleep around 1 in the morning, then getting up between 9 and 10 based on the day. I want to reiterate that I haven’t missed a dose yet. 

 

I’m sorry I haven’t been updating with more accurate symptoms but tbh it can be really difficult to describe them in any kind of specific way. The nature of the cognitive problems in dealing with kind of erases a lot of the nuances in symptoms, and that combined with the extreme fatigue and depression has made it very difficult to even want to try. But this whole experience (dating back to when I first started the lamotrigine) has been characterized by this debilitating mental fog and depression that hasn’t abated no matter what I do. 

 

Anyway in all of this I just want to get back off the lamotrigine as soon as possible and work towards some non-medication based path forward. I’m in a day treatment program that may or may not be helping but I’m figuring that out. I’m also in individual therapy once a week (possibly twice soon), I’ve started exercising again, and I’m in the middle of some personal changes that might turn out to be good. So at this point I’m just looking for some advice as to a tapering schedule. I can do the sixteen weeks if I absolutely have to for the sake of avoiding like seizures or some other kind of extreme adverse reaction to sudden reductions, but if it’s at all possible I’d like to be off much sooner than that. 

 

Thank you for your help so far. 

[childishbranzino]

And let me know if there’s any more information you need me to provide! It’s really hard to think so I might’ve left something really important out.