Lamictal, when do side effects wear off?

[Changed]

So when should the side effects start to go away? Specifically the nausea, headaches, and abdominal pain?

[thunderstorm]

blergh, I think I've hit the side-effects trifecta - rash, nausea and headache - too.

This is decidedly unpleasant. On the plus side, I'm also starting to get some relief from depression, which is nice.

[meg]

I mostly just had horrible headaches and was kinda jittery (bouncing leg, etc.) for the whole time I was titrating up to 100mg (where I stopped, I'm taking it off label for MDD, not for BPI/II) but it was always worse the first few days after I went up a dosage and then just bad not horrible. When I got to 100mg they started letting up after about a week and it took maybe 2-3 weeks to be gone completely. Really not too bad considering how awful side effects can be and I haven't had headaches from it since then (been taking it more than a year now.)

Stick with it if you can- Lamictal changed my life completely and I am SO glad that I pushed or slept or excedrin-ed my way through the headaches. So so so worth it. Goodluck,

m

Ps- I should mention the side effects that never went away but weren't much of a problem until recently:

- dry mouth (what *doesn't* give you drymouth? ALL my meds do, so whatever I drink more water than fish)

- joints aching/cracking: I didn't even ever have my knuckles crack before Lamictal and since I started they've gotten progressively louder and more often (tailbone, neck, my jaw, my hips, my wrists all the time, shoulders, elbows, feet, toes, everything.) which is uncomfortable and annoying

- hand tremors**: I have a low level hand tremor all the time now but it sometimes gets worse with lack of sleep or a few other things and it has been so bad that I couldn't dial a cell phone or get my food all the way to my mouth on a fork. It was mostly fine or hideable but I'm a makeup artist and photographer so this SUCKS. It ruined a really important makeup job and I finally mentioned it to my doc. I now take the tiniest dose of a beta-blocker (blood pressure med) every day and *poof*! tremor gone for most of the day

all totally worth living/dealing with for what Lamictal does for me, and keep in mind my doc hasn't ever had anyone else with the joint thing, etc. so YMMV!

[Littlewing]

Hi Changed. As the others have said, they do wear off. I was getting the headaches, nausea, aching muscles and a slight rash (in fact I still get a very slight rash occasionally) but this was exacerbated by the fortnightly titrations. Once they stopped, most of the side effects have gone away (though they've taken a couple of weeks to do it). As the others have said - stick with it! For me, like others, it is proving a bit of a "wonder drug". I feel less depressed. This is the least amount of side-effects I have had with any drug so far, I actually feel pretty damn good for the first time in ages. It took a while, but it has been worth the slow titration and the small side-effects although annoying at the time, have been worth pushing through.

I really hope it works for you. Personally, I'm so glad we tried it and now I don't want to use anything else if I can help it. I can't speak highly enough of it to be honest. I honestly think it helped save my life towards the end of last year.

LW

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