Dizziness from Lamectal?

[Chauncy123]

I experienced severe dizziness that became dramatically worse over just a few years to, besides collapsing dizzy, included slurring, stuttering, hallucinations, vision loss, to name a few (I could see my phone's keypad, but there were no numbers, only a solid gray square).  I went to 8 neurologist, who were all stumped.  The famous Mayo Clinic summed it was psychosomatic, to which I replied "right now I don't care what's causing it, how do I get rid of it?"  When "expert" #8 told me I may have to live with it, it was the first time I'd ever considered suicide. I couldn't leave the house, or even bed, so I wasn't living anyway.  Five doctors just dropped me cold when they didn't have an answer.  No. 6, at least, referred me to The Mayo.  I asked my therapist "how can I be this sick and not have a doctor helping?" I never felt so alone in my life.  Because I was on my own and trapped at home, I again googled medication that might help with the dizziness, but my search began to uncover medication that caused it. When I got to "antidepressants" I noticed one I was taking, Lamectal. I read comments  from others who had similar symptoms from the drug. I had been taking it for years, so why did not one of those over-priced "experts" question Lamectal?  I suffered for so long and neglected.  I stopped taking it and have been asymptomatic for over 15 months.  Anyone else with a similar reaction to Lamectal?

[Paxiled]

I haven't had that drug, but stopping Paxil destroyed my life.  It wouldn't have if my psychiatrist hadn't been a tool.  Doctors have an almost religious belief in medication but don't do enough pharmacology study to truly understand the downsides.  Much of their income depends on patients taking drugs, because often the solution doesn't involve a doctor at all but dietary changes or other things.  What I am surprised about is the Mayo Clinic not noticing -- that's what their reputation is based on.  Most people do fine on meds, but the casualties are quite large, and it should be a necessary part of medical care to know about what drugs do to us, not just for us.  In the US the situation is particularly bad, as this is the only wealthy country in the world that does not regulate the price of drugs (or the price of medical care in general).  Americans take way more medications than other cultures and are diagnosed with way more otherwise unusual diseases.  It's the best place to be for the really high end surgeries and such, but the worst place to be in the developed world for the day to day problems.  You can learn a lot about this by reading books written by retired doctors, especially those who ran university hospitals.  But they wait until they retire to write them so they're careers aren't threatened.  If you listen to a lot of public radio, you hear very different versions of medical care from medical researchers than you do from physicians, and it's eye-opening.  If you look at this site and the anxiety site you will find so many people put on drugs and then suffering from them when they don't appear to have had that big of a problem to begin with.  You will also see people posting who will tell everyone to go on these drugs for almost everything.  They are often necessary, a lot of times nothing else works, and that was the case for me, so I'm not anti-drug, but I do wish doctors just knew more about when to use them, which ones to use, and how and when to help us stop taking them.  I'm happy you found your answer.  All the best.