Posted by Ritch on December 13, 2004, at 10:18:20
In reply to Re: trileptal as mood stabilzer?, posted by rainy on December 12, 2004, at 20:37:32
> Sorry to keep poking at you Ritch, or anybody, but I just remembered the part about the "significant cognitive blunting." Eeek. When I first went on Topamax and got up to 350, I couldn't remember my own name, let alone anybody else's. Just how bad is this blunting? I'm already blunt. Blunted. If you start slowly, would that help soften that effect?
>
> rainyIt would be worthy of trying. Meds causing cognitive troubles vary so much per individual. I'm been on Depakote two or three different times over the last several years, and when I start that one up I have word-finding problems-spelling difficulties, etc. But.. they DID fade over the course of a few weeks. If I would have stuck with the Trileptal longer it might have worked out (cognitive-wise) in a similar fashion. I was doing it as an experiment to see if I could get off antidepressants for a winter depression and use it (Trileptal) instead of Depakote as a mood stabilizer... I think it would have worked in that department quite well, it it wasn't for the nausea that developed with it. But, that's *also* very subjective. Some people can hook down megadoses of it or Tegretol and not have any of those problems. I couldn't stay on 300mg/day for more than a few days. .... I've noticed that people that tend to tolerate standard or high doses of certain meds tend to be able to tolerate higher or standard doses of others. If you could tolerate 350mg of Topamax (and its associated cognitive dulling effects), I doubt if you would find Trileptal to be that dulling. Topamax... the highest dose I could get to (over several weeks) was 25mg twice daily and I still was snoozing half the day-taking naps. If you are finding the Topamax to be "too" dulling and you add the Trileptal and don't find things worsening much in that respect.. maybe you can reduce the Topamax?
poster:Ritch
thread:428138
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041211/msgs/428856.html