Posted by bleauberry on January 28, 2012, at 10:17:10
In reply to lamictal or nortriptaline, posted by B2chica on January 27, 2012, at 10:30:05
Lamictal does not get overwhelming response at other sites. For that you would need to look at Nardil, Parnate, and Tramadol. Those are the ones that get the highest marks on a 1 -5 average. Lamictal is in the low 3's along with just about everything else, the three meds I mentioned are in the 4's.
Lamictal does work miracles sometimes. It's just that the usual pattern is the miracle does not have endurance most of the time. The TCAs and MAOIs have demonstrated a more reliable endurance record over the years I believe.
If I had seizures I would probably consider lamictal because that's what it is actually supposed to be for....slowing down and controlling excess brain activity. That's probably why word recall and such are common problems with many folks at therapuetic doses. Lamictal for depression was an add-on marketing strategy because they needed to figure out another way to generate more income from it and tap into the huge depression market which is obviously much more profitable than the seizure market.
Honestly, Advil improved my depression more than lamictal. I did have about 2 weeks of miracle recovery when I started lamictal. It was unbelievable. Amazing. Two weeks later it was mostly gone, replaced with sort of a flatline emotion, and doses up to 200mg didn't bring back the goodness.
Therapeutic dose is the lowest dose that works. I've seen that to be as low as 25mg to as high as 400mg. It depends on the person.
There are exceptions to every rule in psychiatry and the phrase mileage varies rules the game. I'm just sayin, if the choice for me is nortriptyline or lamictal, my choice is nortriptyline.
It's not an either/or dilemma. If your first choice doesn't work out, go to the second. When you get right down to it, it really doesn't matter what anyone on this forum says, or other forums, or clinical studies, or anything....there is no way to predict which of these two meds, if any, is right for you or not. Since it is a guessing game, I just happen to think nortriptyline has better odds than lamictal for a variety of reasons.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1008554
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120120/msgs/1008630.html