Mr Lamictal, How Lovely You Are.

Lamictal (lamotrigine) is AWESOME.

Visited another psychiatrist a few days ago, a very lovely and friendly man, he is 80% sure that I am Bipolar 2, but wishes to monitor my progress for the next year or so, because there are so many “areas of grey” in diagnosing people. It took one day for my life to crumble and the label of Bipolar to be assigned to me, my psychiatrist is hesitant to fully diagnose me because it’s been such a short time since I first started to see my psychologist and only 2months since I first approached my GP about anxiety, which opened the cascade for Bipolar. My severe reaction to such a low dose of Avanza makes him hesitant to add anti-depressants to my mood stabiliser, but thankfully I’m changing from Epilim (apparently a top shelf mood-stabilizer – but has weight gain side effects) to Lamictal (very little side effects).

Epilim made my memory extra foggy and drowsy; I’ve started tapering off and have introduced Lamictal which will eventually be increased when I’ve completely tapered off Epilim. Lamictal is actually making me feel a lot better than normal, I had a brilliant day, my head feels good and I can actually see light at the end of the tunnel. I sometimes wonder if I should pick up the rest of my script for the anti-depressant just to see if it will cause hypomania again, I’m not exactly denying Bipolar, I just want more evidence for myself. I should just be happy that I’ve finally found a medication that makes me feel so good, I know that mood-stabilizers can’t always hold off depression though, but its nearly summer in Australia, so the sun if bright and my mood is good, guess I will wait for next winter to truly find out.This is one of the longest times (3weeks) in life where I haven’t been thinking about suicide, I’ve thought about suicide since I was at least 7years old, to some it might seem weird, but it’s always been on my mind somewhere, at the moment with Lamictal it is blessfully absent. I read recently on ‘crazymeds’ that Lamictal can make people go into an extremely good mood for the first few weeks of being on it. I think that’s where I’m at, I’ve been exercising a lot, I’m more pleasant to everyone, I’m motivated and energised . I do still have messed up sleep, jolting awake and thinking something is wrong, acting out my dreams, waking up thinking I’ve forgotten something or I’m late. I’m not usually a good sleeper but having this EVERY night is getting a bit much, in the past I would generally wake up twice a week randomly at 3am and do weird things, now it’s all the time.

“That “without the risk of mania” is only after you’re taking enough, usually 200mg a day. You might get a little too happy the first couple of weeks. Or too irritable, anxious and otherwise unpleasant to be around.”

Anyone had any long term side effects from Lamictal???