I am currently taking Lamictal (400mg/day) and Lexapro (20mg/day). I've been on this combination of medication for approximately 4 years. Before this combo I tried pretty much every medication out there (Prozac, Paxil, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Depakote, Zoloft, and Pamelor just to name a handful) and this is the only combo that has been successful.
Along with being on all of these different medications I have had to go through the process of going off all of the medications which means tapering and side effects, including BRAIN ZAPS.
I'm thinking that a lot of people know what I'm talking about, but just as a brief description, brain zaps for me feel like someone is sticking a wire hanger into the center of my brain and running an electric current through it. It lasts for maybe a second, sometimes a little longer. It is slightly disorienting and not quite painful but downright uncomfortable and scary.
My problem is that recently I've been getting a lot of brain zaps and they usually occur at night. Even though I've been on the medication for so long I still get them every once in a while, but now it's starting to happen every day. During the daytime I seem okay but once night time hits I can have them in spurts, as in one every 1 or 2 minutes up to 10 minutes. This worries me because I've never had the brain zap problem while being medication compliant. I take all of my medication every day and I rarely ever miss a dose. I could probably count the number of times I have forgotten my medication on two hands in the last 4 years. But for some reason I can't stop these zaps. I know I'm not withdrawing, I know I'm not missing meds, so is this something that I should bring up to my psychiatrist? It just started last week so I don't know if I should wait it out or call him to make adjustments.
I'm worried about the adjustments because 3 years ago I tried going down 10mg on my Lexapro and became severely depressed and suicidal. Last year I got the bright idea to try and taper myself down a little on the Lamictal. It took me 6 months to decrease my dose by 50mg (which is literally only 12% of my dose) and I not only had severe side effects from discontinuation but my mood went wild and that mere 50mg difference to me at the end seemed like the difference between life and death.
So anyway, in all of that blah blah blah, I want to know if I should stick this out and see if it will go away on its own, or call my doc and have him figure it out?