Posted by avid abulia on June 11, 2003, at 17:26:31
In reply to Lamictal Efficacy-ADvs.Stabilization, posted by Ponder on June 11, 2003, at 12:15:10
i am not sure of the answer to this BUT i was in a sort of similar situation--the lamictal quit working as an antidepressant, but it still kept me from being manic--well, such as it is, i`m not quite really bipolar per se and it isn`t real mania--but after adding an antidepressant (effexor) i acheived AD results, and then quit taking effexor and had a return of lamictal`s effectiveness.
one thing you might consider if you haven`t already is that, like a lot of other anticonvulsants, lamictal interferes somewhat with folic acid (more specifically, a certain metabolite) and supplementation with folic acid was shown to reverse this. as low folic acid activity is linked to depression, you may want to add some folic acid and see from there how it goes.
> After great results with Lamictal for nearly two years, I am finding the antidepressant properties to be fading. Dosage increases do not seem to help. My question: does the lack of antidepressant effect mean that the stabilizing properties of the drug have faded as well? I know this sounds like a silly question, but some stabilizers don't have much in the way of AD properties to begin with, so it's possible the Lamictal is still delivering some benefits and could provide that necessary stabilizing component in a cocktail if I were to add an AD of some sort. (I'm Bipolar II.)
poster:avid abulia
thread:233175
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030609/msgs/233245.html