Lamotrigine dose timing

[nibblerd]

This is my third week on LTG. During the first week I took 12.5mg at night with my lithium and ziprasidone. I felt fairly tired, exhausted actually, but we attributed this to depression rather than the drug.

During the second week, I took 25mg at night. I had fatigue but wasn't as somnolent as the previous week.

Now on the third week, I quickly learnt that I cannot take all 50mg in the evening. It is extremely activating and I have a difficult time falling asleep if I do this. In fact, I won't sleep at all without some sleep aide, be it Imovane, Restoril, or Benadryl. Because of this, I switched to split dosing. 25mg with my morning lithium at 8:30-9am, and 25mg with my evening lithium at 8:30pm. I feel somewhat sleepy during the day, but my evening dose makes me feel.. not tired at all.

So, I considered taking all of it in the morning, but I'm afraid that it will be tiring rather than activating. I've also thought of taking one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Has anyone else had to mess with dose timing like this, or am I the first? I guess it's a hugely personal thing and I'll never know for sure what works best until I play around with it to see what works.. but I'm still interested in other people's experiences.

[wemble]

my pdoc had me splitting the dose when i first went up to 50mg, but now i take it all in the morning (150mg). i haven't noticed a problem with sleepiness/activating though. HTH.

[confused]

I used to take 100mg in the morning and 100 mg at night. Now, I take 200 mg in the morning.

[tamagotchi]

I take all of my 100mg in the morning.

[tazlina]

I started splitting my dose at about 100mg. I still split it, 200mg in the morning and 100mg at night (but still a few hours before bedtime).

[crazynotstupid]

I split mine, 200 night and morning, no noticeable effects, but that's also with 200 topamax and .5 risperdal each time.

And yeah, the risperdal kicks my ass, but when I'm off the risperdal I don't get tired. Never any activation though.

It may just take some time for your body to get used to it. Things may change in a couple months, if you can hang on that long.

[nibblerd]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to take it all in the morning and see how that goes from there.