Lamotrigine for Anxiety User Reviews (Page 3)

• Amano
• Taken for 2 to 5 years
• December 17, 2021

"Lamotrigine changed my life. Since I can remember, I’ve suffered from severe anxiety, unstable mood, and episodic depression. I’ve been taking it for 4 years now and it’s amazing how much my mood has stabilized. I’ve never had a side effect and can still feel a range of emotions. Paired with gabapentin, my anxiety is finally manageable (almost to the point of non-existent). I feel like I can live life again and have no idea how I functioned on a daily basis before it."

• vano
• August 5, 2021

"After a series of bad events ( long haul covid, bad experience with Lexapro, trauma and bad experiences with weed), Lamotrigine l has been my saving grace. I was suffering from panic attacks and mental break-downs. I could not find pleasure in anything or even go to work I was completely non functional. Lexapro just escalated this feeling and made me suicidal, it is a "fit all" drug that just made me so much worse. It is now my third week on Lamotrigine and the panic has calmed. I still get anxiety but these thoughts are not all-consuming. Almost no days stuck in bed with dark thoughts. I am able to face daily challenges now without absolutely crumbling. I am now on 50mg and considering going up only because the improvement has been great. In my opinion this drug is much more effective than SSRI'S, it simply cuts out the extra brain-activity and lets your mind rest enough to start enjoying life again :)) It does get better and give Lamotrigine a try!!"

• jbano
• October 30, 2019

"I've been on this for years. I am a stroke survivor and thought my very bad hand tremors were due to stroke. No, they were made much worse by lamotrigine. I thought so though one doctor said not. I have cut down very gradually to 25mgs from 200mg (taken about a year) and the withdrawal has been horrible once at about 50 to 75- exhaustion, anxiety and bad gut aches and obsessive thoughts. Almost as bad as SSRI withdrawal. So I am eventually stopping altogether. I have now tried virtually every mood disorder/anxiety/depression med so will just have to use much more cognitive techniques. I also take inderal and clonazepam (.5 once a day). I know I am addicted to clonazepam but I feel I have little choice given that my anxiety was very severe leading to inability to work at all. I'm sure that lamotrigine helps many people . I caution people if you discontinued, then go slow. Hopefully now I will be able to eat with one hand as the shaking will lessen."

• Panda
• Taken for less than 1 month
• August 22, 2020

"I'm on Lamictal for anxiety and depression and got severe hair loss only one week after starting medication. Clumps and clumps come out in the shower. I stopped the medication on the advice of my physician and am on good supplements and a multivitamin but it is a month later and the hair loss is continuing. It’s frightening as I was not on a very high dose but it seemed to have put my system into some sort of shock. No meds now and just l-theanine, taurine, and magnesium which have certainly helped the anxiety. My husband is on lamictal and never had the hair loss that I did. Never again."

• South...
• Taken for less than 1 month
• October 7, 2018

"I have been on Lamotrigine for 3 weeks for anxiety and bad mood swings. Started out on 25mg twice a day, nothing changed. Moved up to 50 mg twice a day, still no positive changes what so ever. I am tired and lethargic. By the evenings I am extremely irritable and yelling at my family "

• Rmpass
• Taken for less than 1 month
• February 1, 2022

"Back in December I was diagnosed with situational anxiety and depression. This was the first time I’ve ever experienced anything like this so I was terrified. I thought I was going crazy, had intrusive thoughts, couldn’t sleep, etc. I was started on generic lexapro 10mg and generic buspar 7.5mg three times a day. After 7 weeks on lexapro and an increase to 15mg,I felt it really wasn’t helping. I decreased to 10mg which helped a little but I still wasn’t feeling much better. I was started five days ago on lamotrigine 25mg for the first two weeks then will increase to 50mg. Now I really don’t want to jinx it, but this has help me so so much. While I don’t feel a 100% back to myself, I feel like I’m on the way there. My anxiety and depression have decreased as have the intrusive thoughts, and I’m starting to feel like myself more and more. I recommend if you can’t seem to find something that works for you"

• Sel
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• February 7, 2020

"Have only been on this drug for a month or so, but I've been extremely dissociated and slow, and my relation to time has gotten much, much worse. It was prescribed to help me sleep, which it has not done at all, I find it actually keeps me up longer."

• Ben
• Taken for 1 to 2 years
• November 7, 2020

"I was on lamotrigine for over 12 months it's now causing pressure in the head, bad anxiety everywhere I go. I'm having sleeping problems certain foods trigger anxiety where it didn't before. It has got to the stage where I'm scared to eat certain foods & drive anywhere. The anxiety is constant... some days are better than others. the Dr is weanning me off it. I've had enough of this drug."

• ashle...
• June 1, 2017

"I had a terrible experience with lamotrigine. it made me irritable beyond belief, as well it substantially lowered my mood and gave me suicidal thoughts. It's hard to say if it was the lamotrigine to blame for my suicidal ideation, as I have struggled with depression for years, but this time the thoughts blindsided me and we're extremely strong and powerful. This conveniently happened as my dose increased."

• coleroo
• February 19, 2018

"yes I just started lamictal yesterday and I didn't think it would work for me at first intake not this fast but to my surprise I was shocked!, I can honestly say this med has made me feel more focused and hardly any anxiety at all! :)"

• Saved...
• Taken for 2 to 5 years
• November 2, 2023

"I have had crippling anxiety since getting a tubal ligation 11 years ago and lamotrigine has been the only medication that has gotten me back to feeling like my actual self again. My thoughts are more organized, I’m not panicked, and I can actually relax. I don’t feel restless anymore!"

• Sam
• Taken for 1 to 2 years
• January 27, 2024

"I've been on lamictal for anxiety/depression for over a year now, and it has been amazing. Before lamictal, I had tried SSRIs, Wellbutrin, and gabapentin without much relief. Lamotrigine has no noticeable side effects for me, unlike all of the well-known SSRI effects and the Wellbutrin rage that I had before. It keeps my anxiety levels down and prevents depressive episodes better than any other medications I've had. I'm glad my psych provider put me on this instead of a standard antidepressant."

• brett
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• November 17, 2015

"75mg is the dose i've been steady on. Worked up at 25mg every 2 weeks, with a day or 2 of itchiness on each increase. I tried 100mg for a few days and felt more anxious and depressed. Went back down to 75mg and feel pretty good. Considering insomnia has been a very serious issue for me, Lamictal is the first med i've been on that isn't an AD and doesn't hurt my sleep (I take it in the AM). When I was trying ADs, the Klonopin barely seemed to work for sleep, I still take Klonopin for sleep but at least I can sleep through the night now. Nice being off the ADs. Hope this one works long-term and I can get off the Klonopin eventually which I think is causing my moderate brain fog. Eh, life is much better than it was. I recommend it!"

• Yolanda
• Taken for 5 to 10 years
• August 14, 2018

"I've been taking lamotrigine for years and I'm in a better place mentally than I've been in years because previously I discontinued an anti-depressant Valporex, and I was feeling very sad and down and hopeless, because I'm going through a divorce after 33 years of marriage. I'm a bipolar 2 sufferer, which was diagnosed at age 46 and I'm 53! I really like the mood stabilizer because I'm stable most of the time. I'm not in mania in spite of the high level stress of living in the house with my soon to be ex."

• lou
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• July 31, 2015

"I had high hopes for this medication. At 25 mg, I thought I noticed a slight positive effect. About when I upped from 25 to 50 mg, I experienced about two weeks of feeling extremely depressed, which continued when I increased to 75 mg. It did somewhat decrease my agitated anxiety, but did not help with my obsessive ruminations. Aside from the depressed mood and mild sedation, I didn't notice any side effects. When I decreased back to 25 mg, I noticed the depressed mood lifting and an increase in anxiety."

• WolfG...
• August 28, 2014

"I've been taking this as a "mood stabilizer", which has been working, but in all honesty I think they put me on this for mood because of the way the other medicines were making me (Risperidone made me psychotic, so did Zoloft). I'm off those now and am currently on Lamotrigine. But it does nothing for anxiety, not one thing. It's made me worry MORE."

• Mikasa
• May 12, 2015

"I'm taking this medication for anxiety and mood swings. It really does close to nothing with my anxiety. It helps my moods a bit but my anxiety is more bothersome. Not only that, my memory is complete crap. I have trouble finding words, memorizing new information and spelling. I am a great speller and ever since I started taking Lamictal, I've forgotten to spell some words which i would have no problem with before. Overall, I feel this med is doing more bad than good. I started taking Seroquel and I can already feel more positive changes than Lamictal has done since I started taking it."

• benezi
• Taken for 1 to 2 years
• September 11, 2017

"THE best drug for trichotillomania to me. It can't be said more about the pain, torture, anxiety, shame, and ... that come with constantly pulling your hair out from your scalp. I used to also constantly pull/scratch the skin out from my outer ear! Before I stopped picking, I have developed 6 "devastated battlefields" on my head and both outer ears where nothing but constant bleeding is noticed. I started lamotrigine for quite a while. It first did little to my trich. In the meantime, I was also on several different SSRI and one SNRI. HOWEVER, after I upped my dose to 125 mg (qd), the scratching IMMEDIATELY went away the day right after I upped my dosage!!! My anxiety is now lower for the first time in years!"

• TamneR
• Taken for less than 1 month
• May 16, 2023

"This medicine was a miracle drug for my daughter who suffers from anxiety, lack of sleep, auditory and visual hallucinations, and a triad of other things. It has "normalized" her and made her stable. Sadly, for my nephew who took his own life within days of being on this medicine, it has become a very traumatic event for our family. It looks like it does more harm than good for many people and should not be used unless the person is being wholly monitored in a restricted setting for the first several weeks. My nephew was an adult living on his own. He had no monitoring and because of the laws of medical confidentiality - the family was unaware of the meds and the risks. It was the coroner who advised the family that this medicine was probably the reason he committed suicide."

• Mellie
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• October 4, 2019

"After discontinuing Klonopin, my doctor prescribed Lamictal. After my first dose, I immediately began to feel much better. It was wonderful & unexpected. That night, shortly after going to bed, I began to sweat like crazy! I figured it had to be a strange coincidence, but the next day, the sweating continued. My doctor said sweating was not a side effect, when I explained my symptom. She said to keep taking the Lamictal, and so I did. Long story short, I had to discontinue this medication. It was wonderful for anxiety, but the sweating was just too much, and I couldn't get a good night's sleep."

• Nikki
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• May 7, 2022

"This was used to help with my anxiety and panic attacks. A few days after starting it I started having nightmares. Like dreaming about traumatizing things and my worst fears. I was getting headaches everyday and feeling exhausted all the time. I had bruising all over my legs for no reason at all. Did not help my anxiety I think it might have made it worse."

• Celti...
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• October 23, 2021

"My daughter who suffers from BPD was put on lamotrigine last June which I wasn’t happy about. She’s suffered from self harm in the past but since taking lamotrigine, she’s self-harmed really badly and took two overdoses which she’s never done in her life. I persuaded the psychiatrist to take her off them. In the month of withdrawal from this drug, it’s been terrible and she actually planned to take her own life last week. She had to go to a recovery house to keep her safe. It states that this drug can cause suicide ideation in the under 25s. It is horrifying and terrifying that this drug can genuinely cause this in some people. For others, it can work well for them. I feel that this medication has very nearly killed my daughter."

• naibaf
• Taken for 1 to 6 months
• January 9, 2020

"lamotrigine didn't work for me and my anxiety. I've been on 300mg dose for 3 months but there was no improvement neither in my anxiety nor in my depression symptoms. At least I had no significant side effects either."

• GG2017
• May 4, 2017

"I take 200 milligram of lamotrigine and 60 milligrams of Prozac everyday. This has been very effective for my anxiety and depression. Though it took about four weeks on the Lamotrigine to stop with a dry mouth and headaches, I would have to say that would be the only downfall."

• Jessiee
• December 14, 2015

"I started taking Lamictal after going to a PHP program. This medication worked really well for me but I was only on it for 2 months because I developed a rash and acne. It made my obsessive and thoughts occur less. I was able to handle situations with more logic and less emotional outbursts. I mean it truly was a great medication. However, my skin has always been clear but it was making me breakout more than I ever have in my life. I also felt like my hair was growing out thinner. If my emotions were totally out of control and life threatening than yes, I would have stayed on it despit the skin and hair problems. However for me it wasn't worth it. I would recommend at least trying it out."