Depression Medications - My lamicta story

Author

My lamicta story - continued

welshboy

2005-10-30, 6:17 pm

right, its almost 3 weeks. I have been on 25mg for first 2 and now up to
50mg since Monday. The pattern of my depressive episodes has changed.
Not for the better i'm afraid. I would go week to week and half good then
week to week and half bad. I would long for the morning when I would wake
up with the 'fear' feeling in my chest. As soon as I awoke without that
feeling of fear and sadness I knew the good run was here for atleast a
week. Anyway, I had a good run of 4 days when I started the Lamicta,-
obviously not a result of taking it, just a coincidence. I then had a bad
run, only lasted 4 days, very short. Then a good run... it only lasted one
day. Since then I have been up an down but mainly down. Not as severe as
the downs before but I have now got to the point of not thinking 'I hope
tomorrow I will wake up without that feeling', well, I do hope. I dont
know if its the lamictal or what, im still on a low dose of 50mg. I hear
it starts to show significant improvement at about 100mg???? I dont know
if I should stop as I recently found out my lithium was below 0.6 and had
been for a month or so. I had 3 good weeks in the summer when I started
lithium and my levels were above 0.6. Shit, I dont know what to do. I
also noticed I am usually getting better as the day progresses, it was
tears all morning and then by about 1pm I was up for taking my neighbours
dog to the beach. I did not feel good or normal this afternoon but I was
definately not as bad a I have been.
Gabe - Kelly - anyone! Help me here... how long did this stuff take to
work? It would not be so bad if I was not having the weeks of normality
before... I want to be stable but I dont want to be stable in a depressed
state! Cheers guys, Dylan

2005-10-30, 6:17 pm

wow i wrote a nice long balanced reply and i somehow killed it before
it was sent.
hang in there and take the dogs for a walk even earlier. dont
oversleep. walk the dogs.
as for lithium- dont know
lamictal- ok. once again- i am a medication wimp. never could get even
close to the high doses the docs wanted me at. with lamictal i was able
to. i think with those who can tolerate it, they can do so pretty high.
this is anecdotal but whatever.
50-100mg-- i think the AD aspect of lamictal is overtouted. it is like,
hmmm, a sugar rush or a pleasant early morning kick in the XXX at this
range. as an AD, it is alright. the real balancing act (which belive me
can be better than an AD) comes around 200-400mg. u are going real slow
on it and that's cool. it took me sooo long to get up (dont think
viagra here) but once i did it was amazing. and i say amazing not in
the miracle drug sense but because of the balancing act. 25-100 for me
was like this- first few days, wow, an AD/then slowly back down; 50mg,
wow an AD/same thing. Once I got up to 200 it was a different ballgame.
the AD aspect didnt matter as much as the ELIMINATION of variance, of
chance pitfalls into depression land. still happened once and a while
but not so much and the pattern was really visible. why important? b/c
i stopped freaking out during the depressions. i knew that i had to
wait a few hours or so and everything would be back to functional
depression. so that's what i can give you mate. i wish an AD would work
but at 400mg balanced im depressed but happy. understand. so in answer.
25-100 is limbo- 200 is when i started to feel stabilized. i think i
got some backup here in the crazymeds site. check it out.
dont stress at this point. you are around where i was at that dose...
chhhhhhhhhhmrrrsrswqwwwwwwww (welsh for good luck)

gabe

culprit

2005-10-30, 6:17 pm

"welshboy" <dylan@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ee9ab12f95953a0b8d34cbccfa071c6d@localhost.talkaboutsupport.com...
> right, its almost 3 weeks. I have been on 25mg for first 2 and now up to
> 50mg since Monday. The pattern of my depressive episodes has changed.
> Not for the better i'm afraid. I would go week to week and half good then
> week to week and half bad. I would long for the morning when I would wake
> up with the 'fear' feeling in my chest. As soon as I awoke without that
> feeling of fear and sadness I knew the good run was here for atleast a
> week. Anyway, I had a good run of 4 days when I started the Lamicta,-
> obviously not a result of taking it, just a coincidence. I then had a bad
> run, only lasted 4 days, very short. Then a good run... it only lasted
> one
> day. Since then I have been up an down but mainly down. Not as severe as
> the downs before but I have now got to the point of not thinking 'I hope
> tomorrow I will wake up without that feeling', well, I do hope. I dont
> know if its the lamictal or what, im still on a low dose of 50mg. I hear
> it starts to show significant improvement at about 100mg???? I dont know
> if I should stop as I recently found out my lithium was below 0.6 and had
> been for a month or so. I had 3 good weeks in the summer when I started
> lithium and my levels were above 0.6. Shit, I dont know what to do. I
> also noticed I am usually getting better as the day progresses, it was
> tears all morning and then by about 1pm I was up for taking my neighbours
> dog to the beach. I did not feel good or normal this afternoon but I was
> definately not as bad a I have been.
> Gabe - Kelly - anyone! Help me here... how long did this stuff take to
> work? It would not be so bad if I was not having the weeks of normality
> before... I want to be stable but I dont want to be stable in a depressed
> state! Cheers guys, Dylan

oops, responded to your other post before seeing this one...

it started working with me about 50-100 mg, but you have to get through the
2-4 day jitters first. less painful come on than SSRI, and when it hits,
BOOM, you're fine. i think 100 you'll start to feel something. they have
to ramp up slowly cause of the rash.

you'll get there. this stuff rocks.

-kelly
>