Posted by Ritch on November 1, 2002, at 13:47:21
In reply to Re: Recognizing / Treating Cyclothymia, posted by Krysti on November 1, 2002, at 10:54:45
> Hi Ritch,
>
> When I first went on the Gabitril, I was supposed to take one 4mg pill in the morning and two 4mg pills at night. I started having abdominal pains right away so my doctor was going to switch me to something else at my next appointment. I ended up just taking 4mg at night and the pains went away. I remained stable on that dose so we never switched. However, I did end up feeling "flat" (which I felt on the Depakote also). Then I got depressed and then started having crying spells. That's when I added the Lexapro (10mg). I've felt good since then (I started the Lexapro about a month ago).
>
> I was hoping just the mood stabilizer would do the trick, obviously - who wants to take a bunch of stuff? But, from everything I've read, that "flat" feeling happens to a lot of people on mood stabilizers alone so I decided to just go ahead and add on an anti-depressant. It's worked so far :)
>
> Do you remember how much you were taking? Have you tried adding an anti-depressant to your stabilizer?
>
> Krysti
Oh, I was taking a LOT. I started out at 4mg at bedtime and then added an additional 4mg/day every week. I got up to 12mg twice daily and I just zonked out totally. I had just taken 12mg all at once and went to work and just got lost... I almost didn't know who I was or what I was doing there. I felt kind of panicky because of that. It was that jamais vu feeling of strangeness in a familiar place, except it didn't really feel familiar! Also, I got an intense facial/forehead numbness from it as well-an anesthetic feeling. I always have to take a *tiny* dose of a serotonergic antidepressant (nowadays 12.5mg of Effexor). I was on 1.25-2.5mg of Celexa every day for a couple of years before that. Any more than that and I start getting very hypomanic. I've also got ADHD and take Ritalin (at a fairly common dosage, however). It doesn't seem to cause that type of problem that AD's seem to cause.
poster:Ritch
thread:125331
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021101/msgs/126102.html