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Low blood sodium, anticonvulsant question.

SullenKitty
SullenKitty

Last week I started having awful nausea, headache, fatigue, weakness, just feeling plain awful. It just so happens I was due for labs from the pdoc at the same time and I was found to have low blood sodium. Anyone else ever experience that? It was terrible. I'm decreasing the trileptal from 1800mg to 1200mg as the pdoc said to do and I'm feeling much better. But I'm also so irritable today. What exactly do anticonvulsants used for mood stabilization do? Would decreasing it make me more irritable? If so, is this just something I'll experience while my body adjusts to the lower dose or will this be my new norm if I stay on trileptal at the lower dose? I'm actually feeling better mood wise since decreasing it also, depression and anxiety wise. Just this irritability is bad right now. I keep almost physically lashing out at my family today. 

OlderCPer
OlderCPer
Actually the increased agitation is probably due more to the low blood sodium levels. There's been research that some people are more "salt sensitive" and have an increased susceptibility to emotional irritation and lower anger management when under duress caused by low blood sodium. It works the same way as increased stress causes the same types of symptoms.

A 200mg drop in Trileptal or any Anti-convulsant used off-label for BiPolar would be an unusual target to cause the irritation and agitation your feeling, especially with as high a dosage as you take.

As your blood sodium levels out the irritability/agitation should go away.
Community LeaderSunCloudJD
SunCloudJD
I just looked this up and it can create problems with your electrolytes …. specifically sodium

I would have a plan in place if you're going to stay on it in case this ever happens again.... It may happen on a Saturday night or if your doc is on holidays for instance so I would ask him/her what to do if you have any of these symptoms in the future

https://www.emedicinehealth.com/drug-oxcarbazepine/article_em.htm
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