Steven Johnsons Syndrome/Heart Palpitations

[eedee17]

One week ago a psychiatrist put me on 300mg Lamictal pm (without titration), 20mg Geodon pm, 1mg Intuniv pm, 10mg Ambien pm, 15mg Focalin am, and 40mg Vyvanse am for ADHD and bipolar. Prior this regimen I wasn't on any medications. Today I had to call an amulance as my resting pulse shot up to 140bpm and my blood pressure went up to 166/90. I thought I was going to die. As well, my lymph nodes are swollen and a bleeding rash has started to form on my hand. Because of both of these events I disposed of all the medications. If the rash doesn't subside then I'll go to the emergency room tomorrow. My question is this: Will I be okay with the sudden discontinuation of all these meds having taken them for a single week? I feel crazy right now--this being the first night in a week not being all the "pm" meds. Thank you so much for your time.

Edward

[ILADVOCATE]

As well Geodon can cause heart arrythmia so what happened as regards the blood pressure  abnormalities may be from that. However, Intuniv, also known as Guanfacine I believe is the same medication as Tenex. I was prescribed that as well. It is an alpha blocker, a class of blood pressure medications that due to their side effect profile must be discontinued slowly (that medication was actually quite helpful for me and what is does in its original use besides psychiatric is to lower not raise blood pressure). Much is going on of concern and right now for physical reasons the safest place for you to be is a hospital so they can monitor all this for your safety.

[ILADVOCATE]

You will experience some withdrawal symptoms so it might be best to have this supervised in a hospital. Lamictal by FDA regulation (I remember when I took it and other people as well, you can also look on the medication website) must be titrated at rate of 25 mg. per week because of the risk of Steven's Johnson Syndrome. I would change psychiatrists definitely and also find a way to write a formal complaint (after everything else has stabilized) about this as that should not have been done. However unless this was done under clinical supervision it was not a good idea to discontinue all the medications as Lamictal is the specific one that would have created that side effect. Since Stephen's Johnson Syndrome is highly dangerous (and needs to be monitored even if the Lamictal has been discontinued, it may require physical treatment of its own) it would be within good sense to go to the emergency room and explain what happenned and see if you could be hospitalized to have that monitored and have appropriate psychiatric medications titrated in the correct manner so that things would stabilize. Not all medications can cause that side effect and if adjusted properly would be beneficial.