switching to Lamotrigine

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greywolf

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Hi everyone, I got a call I've been dreading today from my neurologist. The last conversation we had last week was cut short, so I finished telling him about some side effects I was having in an email. That got his attention, and he booked a call for today! I guess one of my side effects is quite dangerous, so he said we need to switch to a new drug.

Currently I'm taking 1000mg Levetiracetam (aka: Keppra) twice per day. He wants to switch me over to Lamotrigine, slowly of course, and then eventually stop the Levetiracetam all together, assuming everything goes according to plan. Naturally, this means I'll lose my license again, and with that I'll lose my job. I don't know how that's going to work, but that's a whole other conversation.

Have any of you been on these two drugs at the same time? Any thoughts in general about Lamotrigine? I'm kind of worried about taking so many drugs all at once. I also take a small dose of a blood pressure drug, so I'll be taking three things at once. I'm a bit scared to be honest, but I guess it needs to be done...
 
I started taking keppra as my first drug, and seizures didn't stop. My neurologist then put me on lamictal now I'm at 600mg, it does work, but when I miss medicine and I forget it more than I would like to say. Even when it is directly in front of me all day.

The worst side effect I hear is the deadly rash. I got no rash. It should be fine, but I'll be honest when I got off of keppra, 500mg when I got off on the final dose it triggered a seizure. Not to scare you, it was me. I was surprised it was even working then.

Combination drugs are common. I'm on lamictal and topamax 50mg right now.
 
only very small percentage of people get the rash but everyone's scared of that side effect, I've taken lamotrigine, second med, worked great but had to stop because of the risk taking behavour went a bit too far (not mentioned on the insert leaflet) that was number of years ago, now on xcopri briavict and clozabam
 
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