Lamictal and Lithium

[Di_E]

I have been on Lithium and a herd of other meds.

I went to my primary dr. because all of a sudden I was bruising and bleeding easily and he ran some blood work and there was a spike in my blood so I was sent to a blood specialist who diagnosed it as lulpis coagulation which isn't really lupas but thin blood, i.e.   I mentioned to the blood dr. that I was seeing things moving around, like a door nob would move all over, there was a chain on the floor and it moved around like a snake.  He suggested I see an optomologist due to the possiblity of bleeding behind my eyes and retnal.  I was more focused on  this bleeding suddenly occuring I went back to the blood dr. to ask if I was going to have these awful looking veins forever, yep.  scars on my legs from cuts.  He asked me if I had seen the eye dr. and I told him no because the wiggling things weren't happening, so I go to the eye dr. and my eyes are in perfect shape, the eye dr. refers me to a neurologist.  The neurologist had seen cases of lamictal so he identified my problem.  I was taken off Lamictal and a couple of weeks later I had the worse attack of all, things everywhere in my house were moving around 100X worse, I would have thought that if I had another bout with wiggling things it would be mild but no this was horrifying.  My curtains were moving around, all the carpet in my house, that one chain I had left there so I could look at it and see if I was okay, well it was't just one chain wiggling around it was more than a dozen or so.  Even if I was an expert I would never have predicted this severe situation until lamictal has knocked me to the ground.  II know my shrink who is very good will resist, I don't want to feel like I am pushing him around but since it was a medical problem (at least looked like one)  he wasn't involved and other than hearing me complain about the blood etc. he never really had the entire picture.

I am thinking it might be safer just to stay on lithium alone and get the rest of these meds out of my system, obviously I am on high alert now that lamictal has tossed me down on the cement and left me with life long physical problems.

Granted my case is classified as rare etc. by the drug company, I am only answering your question about the lamictal part.  buyer beware.  I never would have thought in a million years it would happen to me, not even crossed my mind.  I went from high functioning to meds to the sliding hill heading toward a freight train.

If this keeps up I will die from a bipolar drug an old lady in a rocking chair.  I am seeing my life fast foward in an ugly direction and feel very distrustful of meds in general.  Lithium doensn't bother me or any side effects and after reviewing it very carefully as long as I keep on top of the blood tests and loads of water I am not going to wake up one day with liver or kidney failure. I am just praying that I got away from lamictal with only 2 very serious life long physical problems.   Am I better off with some mania in my life that watching my physical body go to  pieces.  Have had a rough couple of days accepting what was done to me physically by lamictal.

Here they always ask about suicide and the meds are killing me off faster than I could and never had an plan to commit suicide.

Good luck,

Di

[Di_E]

Hi, thank you for your information.  It is tricky business to look at a long list of possible "side effects" and know what will have any kind of effect.  How to weed out the ones on the list that are sudden and a done deal is the tricky part.

D

[ILADVOCATE]

  If you have encountered an adverse side effect from a specific medication its best to work with your psychiatrist to transfer to a medication that won't cause that effect within their understanding (they have access to a physician's only database that has the specifics of all side effects as well as beneficial effects and interactions of all medications). However just because you encountered an adverse side effect from one medication would not mean you would have the same problem with another medication. Medications are clinically different from each other as are people's reactions to them and it should be noted further research is being done to understand how people will respond to specific medications and what is the best medication for them to help address this type of concern. I did encounter some rather serious adverse side effects from some medications but have tolerated others well without a problem. If you are concerned about the specifics look up the medication websites or read the PDR (physician's desk reference) and discuss that information with your psychiatrist to see what the best decision is from there.