Posted by SLS on July 9, 2006, at 8:01:30
In reply to Re: Lamictal and thinking » SLS, posted by fuchsia on July 9, 2006, at 7:34:05
Hi Fuchsia.
> Scott, I have increased my dose of Lamictal over the course of a year in order to chase the improvement. Now I am up to 400mgs and I don't think I even improved much after I passed 300.
I experienced no further improvement upon raising the dosage from 300mg to 450mg.
> The only cognitive impairment that I can detect is a marked loss of dream recall.That's interesting. Did you experience an increase in dreaming when you first began taking Lamictal?
> The fact that this has happened makes me slightly concerned that there could be other cognitive impairment I'm not aware of.
This is a possibility. I found that the cognitive impairments crept up on me almost unnoticed. The other possibility is that the Lamictal has reduced the number of entries into REM sleep you experience in the morning, thus reducing your apparent memories of dreams. (Lamictal increases the total amount of time spent in REM, but reduces the number of episodes).
Do you feel like you are thinking while in a fog or talking to others as if you were standing behind a veil?
> Anyway, I'd like to go back down to about 200mgs but I don't see how I could do this as I think it would have to be done gradually and thus the rebound depression could be prolonged. Do you think this would be the case? I'm not sure what I should do as I'm already getting severe patches at the moment.
Gosh. I'm sorry things aren't so peachy for you at the moment. Perhaps this isn't the ideal time for you to make any changes. Is it a situational thing or a biological thing? If it is a biological thing, there might not be any better time than the present, you know? Maybe you can reduce the dosage of Lamictal by 25mg a week. From my experience, this would help to prevent a rebound depression. Any worsening should be mild and last a day or two at the most. I am betting that you will be OK with that.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:650415
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060709/msgs/665370.html