Anyone here on Lamictal?

Son wrote:Yes I started Lamictal over a year ago and it helped calm me down a lot. It took 200 mg a day ultimately to become stable, and this took 2 months to accomplish. But it was worth it. No side effects.

I'm actually on the generic now... insurance issues and can't afford the brand name. While the brand name was perfect and kept me sane, the generic does absolutely nothing. Exactly 4 weeks after switching to generic I became completely manic and then rapid cycled with suicidal depression. My new insurance kicks in next week and I plan to go back on the brand immediately.

Hi Son

I don't mean to be patronising but I think it's very important for people to understand that there is absolutely no difference between brand and generic versions of drugs. They have exactly the same active ingredients. The pills might look slightly different but they are exactly the same. I live in the UK where healthcare is free (apart from taxes!) and if a drug is out of patent (i.e. any company can manufacture it, rather than just the company that invented it) our doctors will always prescribe the cheapest version because it will be exactly the same as the most expensive. Any change in your mood is 100% not caused by switching to a generic version of your medication.

Also, the names commonly used in the USA for psychiatric medications, such as Prozac, Seroquel, Zoloft, Lamictal etc. are not scientific names of drugs; rather they are brand names. The actual drugs are called respectively, Fluoxetine, Quetiapine, Sertraline and Lamotrigine. Any pill that contains, for example 50mg of Lamotrigine, will have exactly the same effects, regardless of the brand name on the box.

Also, brand names vary depending on where you live in the world. For example, brand names for Sertraline include Zoloft, Lustral, Asentra but they all do the same thing.

OK, rant over.

Best wishes.

i_guess_im_bipolar wrote:I don't mean to be patronising but I think it's very important for people to understand that there is absolutely no difference between brand and generic versions of drugs. They have exactly the same active ingredients. The pills might look slightly different but they are exactly the same. I live in the UK where healthcare is free (apart from taxes!) and if a drug is out of patent (i.e. any company can manufacture it, rather than just the company that invented it) our doctors will always prescribe the cheapest version because it will be exactly the same as the most expensive. Any change in your mood is 100% not caused by switching to a generic version of your medication.

Hello,

this is untrue.

In fact, a 2009 FDA study showed that of 2,070 orally administered generic drug products approved by the agency between 1996 to 2007, generics differ in bioequivalency from brand names, on average, by about 3.5 percent; less than two percent varied by more than 10 percent.

(Source)

Two versions of a drug are generally said to be bioequivalent if the 90% confidence intervals for the ratios of the geometric means (brand vs. generic) of the AUC and Cmax fall within 80% and 125%. The tmax (brand vs. generic) must also be comparable — and there should not be any significant differences between different patients.

(Source)

There is also the fact that "fillers" are different between generics and brand meds. For me, for instance, generic depakine has caused stomach problems, while brand one did not. Zopiclone brand med made me fall asleep immediately, while generic had some sort of covering layer that took so long to dissolve I couldn't sleep until I discovered it helps to simply cut it in half so the substance is freed immediately. In all other cases I was happy with generics.

This is not to say generics are TEH EVILZ obviously, just pointing out that you are incorrect, at least in case of generics available in the United States (and in my case Netherlands).

Hi Olivera

Thanks for your response. I stand corrected. However, I do think the general thrust of my argument is correct in that a 50mg generic Lamotrigine tablet has 50mg of Lamotrigine in it, and so does a 50mg Lamictal tablet. To think that switching to a generic version would make the pill useless is pretty misguided (again I'm not trying to be rude).

I maybe got a bit carried away because I'm not a big fan of the insurance based health care system in the States!

Are you taking Lamotrigine? Do you find it helpful? I'm just starting on it, currently on 30mg and it seems to be quite effective in improving mood but I'm feeling a little bit manic. For example, I never usually post comments on message boards!

Cheers

The US system... yeah let's say I am not a fan.

I take generic lamotrigine, 250 mg, and it works perfectly well without ANY side effects at all. And it's my miracle drug, got me stable after years of ultra-ultra-rapid cycling. I love it.

I've read somewhere, tried to find the article but couldn't, that FDA either allows or used to allow deviations from the amount of actual substance per pill of 20%. Which meant your pill was between 80 and 125 percent of what a brand med would be. But as I said I couldn't find that article so take it with a very large pinch of salt.

I went very slowly with lamictal. Two weeks on 25 mg, two weeks on 50, two weeks on 100, I was like "please can we do it faster" because I was in terrible depression, but my pdoc said "it's because we take it so slow that you have no side effects". At 200 mg I was still zombiefied, but not depressed, and at 250 mg I feel... fixed.

Why in God's name would the FDA let them mess with the doses like that?! Not that I don't believe you.

Do you get any cognitive/ memory problems with Lamotrigine? For a couple of days I had a lot of trouble remembering names but it seems to have gone away now that I've been on 30mg for several days. This is my main worry with Bipolar meds. I've never been on mood stabilisers or anti-psychotics for an extended period of time since I've only ever had one manic episode. I'm mainly taking Lamotrigine to get me out of a low level depression I've had for the past 18 months, despite already being on 45mg Mirtazapine.

i_guess_im_bipolar wrote:Why in God's name would the FDA let them mess with the doses like that?! Not that I don't believe you.

It's just law vs lobbying. I mean, you can buy guns in America without any background checks. I'll just end it here.

i_guess_im_bipolar wrote:Do you get any cognitive/ memory problems with Lamotrigine? For a couple of days I had a lot of trouble remembering names but it seems to have gone away now that I've been on 30mg for several days. This is my main worry with Bipolar meds. I've never been on mood stabilisers or anti-psychotics for an extended period of time since I've only ever had one manic episode. I'm mainly taking Lamotrigine to get me out of a low level depression I've had for the past 18 months, despite already being on 45mg Mirtazapine.

Nothing like you mention. I've had poor memory ever since I remember (hoho) and Lamictal in particular doesn't seem to be affecting it either way.

Now Mirtazepine turned me into a sugar vacuum. If it was sweet I ate it. My high point was a package of 10 pre-made pancakes and a full large pot of Nutella. All in one go, of course.

Haha. Yeah I'm the same on Mirtazapine - all I want is sweets and carbs. That's pretty much the only side effect though

I put on nearly a stone after just one month of Mirtazapine. My psychiatrist says that this was unusual, but judging by your posts it probably isn't.

I am on lamotrigine and sometimes the brand varies. It could be Lactimal or the generic. I was told that sticking to the same brand is important if you take it for epilepsy, but not so much for bipolar. I'm in the UK.

I'm on lamictal 100 mgs. At first my pdoc titrated me up to 200 mgs daily but my hair started falling out. So I went off of it and then built up to 100 mgs per day. No more hair loss. I still take Selenium and Biotin to help ensure this doesn't happen again and it hasn't. I find Lamictal reasonably helpful; not so much as some of others on this site have experienced. Frankly, my antidepressants help me a good deal more. Pristiq and Wellbutrin have been good to me.

During this most recent episode (lots of self-harm thoughts) my pdoc upped my Latuda from 40 mg to 80 mg. When I started having muscle spasms he put it back down to 40 and upped my Lamictal from 300 to 400. The muscle spasms have decreased and the Lamictal has actually helped reduce the thoughts more than the Latuda did.