Posted by sweetmarie on March 10, 2001, at 13:13:55
In reply to Re: treatment resistant depression , posted by phillybob on March 10, 2001, at 10:37:37
> < I will certainly point the rash out to the psych doctors when I go into hospital (if it`s still there). >
>
> If you are NOT going into the hospital today or tomorrow, please inform a professional of your rash as it can lead to most unfortunate consequences (even death).
>
> Also, to help us (those, like myself, beginning lamictal therapy) understand what factors may have contributed to causing the rash:
>
> (1) How much of lamotrigine are you taking and what was the rate of increase in dosage?
>
> and, (2) How much valproate have you been taking along with the lamotrigine?
>
> Thanks for your input, sweetmarie, and I hope your rash ends up being nothing bad after all.Phillybob, over the past year I have been taking 25 mg of Lamotragine plus 1000 mg of Valproate. My psychiatrist - on instruction from the specialist I saw (and will subsequently be `under` during my hospital stay) put the dosage up from this (25 mg) to 100 mg, with the aim of increasing it to 250 mg. I was taking the 100 mg for a week and went up to 200 mg 2 days ago. I will then increase to 250 mg in another week. Having written it down, it seems like quite a `steep` increase. I`m not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing - I guess it must be O.K. otherwise my psychiatrist wouldn`t have done it. I`m not due to go into hospital for about another 5 weeks, but as I said before, my psychiatrist didn`t seem to think that the rash was anything to worry about. Neither did the dermatologist - mind you, I was in and out of that appointment within about 5 minutes, so I don`t know whether she made the connection (although I did tell her which medications I was taking). The rash itself is basically little spots, kind of like normal spots only smaller. They mostly have `heads` on them (sorry for being a bit graphic here). Having said all of this, my psychiatrist had only put one other patient on Lamotragine (a woman who had `discovered` it on the Net). Prior to this, she hadn`t heard of the drug. I`m not actually sure of what to do about all this; I feel like I have exhausted all my options (psychiatrist, GP, and dermatologist). What I may do, is post a question to one of the on-line psychiatric `experts`, and see what they say.
I guess that this isn`t very helpful (though at least I was able to give you dosages). I can`t remember whether I mentioned this, but as I am increasing the Lamotragine, I am phasing out the Valproate altogether. This may make a difference - I don`t know.
Anna (I feel strange calling myself `sweetmarie` - it`s the first time I have used an alternative to my real name. I got it from my favourite song - Absolutely Sweet Marie by Bob Dylan. This is of course irrelevant.
poster:sweetmarie
thread:55847
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010310/msgs/56141.html