Depression Support Group
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I've been taking Lamictal 200mg daily for 5 years and haven't had any problems with it. It seemed to be the extra boost I needed to unlock me from the horrible inertia that comes with my depression.
Through my own stupidity I have missed 2 daily doses and will miss yet another tonight. With some luck I will get back on Monday.
You see I waited to the last minute to reorder refills. I take a bunch of med besides this so I didn't notice that this one was "no refills". But my pharmacy always contacts my doctor when this happens and gets a request for a renewal. But this time it didn't happen. Doc didn't look at her emails or something else went amiss, but when I checked back at the pharmacy for the second time yesterday there was no update from my doctor. Of course it's the weekend so there won't be anything further until tomorrow. So I'm likely to get some withdrawal symptoms before I can get back on track.
I know better than this and I'm really p.o.'d with myself, but what is done is done and hopefully I will learn from this.
In the past I have always kept back a reserve of up to a week's supply of all psychotropics in case of emergency, but not this time.
Many years ago I took myself off of all meds abruptly. This was about 15 years ago and my doctor then claimed that there was no danger in doing this other than my symptoms would return. Well that's just not true as most of us now know. They don't call it "withdrawal" in the medical community because these aren't addictive narcotics, but there is a long list of brutal effects they call "discontinuance syndrome" that are just as evil if not more so than narcotic withdrawal. At first I thought I had a brain tumor or something, and then after a clean neurological exam I thought I was stark raving mad. I suffered for months without support then... but now things have changed.
I guess I just want to hear from anyone who has had Lamictal withdrawal so I have some idea what to expect. I'm looking for a little hand holding over the next 24 hours or so til I can get my meds.
So far I have had a great deal of difficulty concentrating. I have a little bit of a brain/body "disconnect" feeling and I woke up with a killer headache.
Through my own stupidity I have missed 2 daily doses and will miss yet another tonight. With some luck I will get back on Monday.
You see I waited to the last minute to reorder refills. I take a bunch of med besides this so I didn't notice that this one was "no refills". But my pharmacy always contacts my doctor when this happens and gets a request for a renewal. But this time it didn't happen. Doc didn't look at her emails or something else went amiss, but when I checked back at the pharmacy for the second time yesterday there was no update from my doctor. Of course it's the weekend so there won't be anything further until tomorrow. So I'm likely to get some withdrawal symptoms before I can get back on track.
I know better than this and I'm really p.o.'d with myself, but what is done is done and hopefully I will learn from this.
In the past I have always kept back a reserve of up to a week's supply of all psychotropics in case of emergency, but not this time.
Many years ago I took myself off of all meds abruptly. This was about 15 years ago and my doctor then claimed that there was no danger in doing this other than my symptoms would return. Well that's just not true as most of us now know. They don't call it "withdrawal" in the medical community because these aren't addictive narcotics, but there is a long list of brutal effects they call "discontinuance syndrome" that are just as evil if not more so than narcotic withdrawal. At first I thought I had a brain tumor or something, and then after a clean neurological exam I thought I was stark raving mad. I suffered for months without support then... but now things have changed.
I guess I just want to hear from anyone who has had Lamictal withdrawal so I have some idea what to expect. I'm looking for a little hand holding over the next 24 hours or so til I can get my meds.
So far I have had a great deal of difficulty concentrating. I have a little bit of a brain/body "disconnect" feeling and I woke up with a killer headache.
the 2nd thing is that my pdoc and pharmacist have told me that if I am without it for 3 days or more on the trot then I have to re-start it at the lower dose and work my way back up again... please check with both your pdoc and the pharmacist... I did have a friend who was off it for 10 days and went straight back to her 200mg without any problems... but please err on the side of caution
never been off it long enough to experience any discontinuance symptoms... I have missed my night time dose sometimes and my mood plummets.. thats how I know this is a great med for me
good luck and I hope you feel better soon
Cyndy001 - you're right - I should have tried to get the pharmacy to sell me just a couple, but I am pathetically non assertive about my needs. That's something I really need to work on.
I had a horrific headache yesterday, but managed to get past that. I'm left with a sort of brain body disconnected feeling, and inability to focus on anything, but help is on the way.
Gotta work out ways to keep this from happening again. I'm going to look into a mail order system.