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Memory Loss & Lamictal

Fri, 08/12/2011 - 23:08
Hi everyone. I'm Kat, I've been active on this board for a while but mostly in the Women With Epilepsy forum. I was going to post this in there but I feel like it should be more open to everyone since it's not focusing on women only issues. Since starting Lamictal almost two years ago, I have noticed some fluctuations with my mood as well as my ability to concentrate, that showed mostly as I got up in the dosage. I started at 25mg like most patients and eased my way up to my current 250mg BID (twice a day) dosage. I did the escalation slow as recommended & did not experience any obvious side effects. However, as I've gotten more into my medication routine with it, I have noticed that my moods seem to fluctuate (just a little bit, but still noticeable) and I know that Lamictal is also used to manage bipolar disorder. I am currently in the process of switching doctors so I've been waiting to talk to my new doctor about these issues. I don't have the best relationship with my current doctor & feel as if he doesn't listen so I don't see the point in even bringing it up. In fact, I believe I brought it up to him in the past but to no avail. His answer for everything is either "that's normal but not worrysome" or "lets increase the dose & call me in a week". To run through what I've noticed, the main thing is that I have a hard time handling a day regimen that requires me to multitask. This presents a lot of problems because I have a very busy life with working, managing my home due to my boyfriend being away a lot for his work, taking care of a new puppy practically by myself & being a college student, about to enter a very heavily crowded schedule. I have taken on two jobs in the fall after school starts & even though I have an optimistic look to it, I know from my past that my memory lapses cause a lot of problem. For example, I missed the deadlines for several things involving school that will make my semester hard such as missing the deadline for a grant that would be very helpful & missing the date to order the main campus parking permit & having to get one that's much more difficult to deal with. I've always been a little scatterbrained but it seems much worse lately. Sometimes someone can tell me something & in just fifteen minutes, I forget what they said. This causes a lot of frustration with everyone around me & makes me feel incompetent. I'm not entirely sure it's just the medication but in my heart, I feel like it has something to do with it. Does anyone else that's on Lamictal (I take the generic lamotragine) experience similar problems? If so, how much does it affect your life & how much is your current dosage? I appreciate any feedback. Thanks guys!

Comments

Re: Memory Loss & Lamictal

Submitted by Dazzer21 on Mon, 2012-02-13 - 09:49

Sorry if you've read this elsewhere - I'm reposting here as this appears to be a newer thread:

 

I've been tearing myself to pieces over this of late and to find this post has been a bit of a revelation. So much so, I had to register and participte. My issues are thus (this might waffle on a bit...):

I'm on Lamotrogine 2x200mg per day, and have been for around 12 years. I'm a 42 year old male. I developed photosensitive epilepsy when I was a toddler, the cause being put down as being a bad reaction to a whooping cough injection. I went through my formative years, probably up to my mid teens, having grand-mal seizures, mainly due to teenage angst circled around my lack of respect for my medication; they were real thrashers - my body ached for days afterwards. My medical history during this time was very well documented due to my regular tests, EEGs and such (no brain scans, though) and oputpatients visits.

Then things calmed down and the medication was on top of it all without incident. I was able to work proficiently, I was passed fit to drive and was able to live a normal life. In 2002, I woke up one morning and couldn't remember a thing about the day before - it had been my eldest child's sports day, which was a hot, sunny day and I wasn't wearing a hat; it was presumed to be a mild case of sunstroke and I carried on about my day. Sure enough, as the day progressed, I started to remember more as I was reminded about it. This was about a year after being transferred to Lamotrogine. Previously I had been on Epilim (1000mg per day!), and before that, Epanutin (chalky, chewable tablets - yuk!).

2 years previous to this, I moved house - about 40 miles away. I still worked near where I previously lived and, deciding that keeping continuity going was best policy, I remained with my then-current GP and consultant. However, as time moved on, it was deemed more convenient to move things to closer to where I live now and I transferred.

Things seemed to move pretty quickly under the new regime and very soon I was put in for a brainscan. The result of that was pretty startling - I have a temporal lobe arachnoid cyst on the left side of my brain, and quite sizeable it is too! I'd already started to experience patchy memory and concentration issues and the location of the cyst (in an area of the brain that controls such functions as logic and memory issues) seemed to - in my mind - put this down as the root cause of my problems; thank God my work is mainly creative!! (I'm a graphic designer). One thing that the new lot have refused to do so far is refer to any previous medical records, but I digress.

So that's my history, here's where I am now...

I'm getting pretty close to being terminally frustrated about this 'condition'; With regards to my work, I have gone from being absolutely brilliant at my job (and that's client's testiments, not my own) to being pretty good at best and, at times, damn-near incompetent, although I am in a position where, most of the time, I can cover up or rectify any issues before it all goes tits-up! Sometimes I forget things virtually as soon as they are said to me, other times not. Sometimes I get on with a task only to get to a stage where it dawns on me that I didn't complete it, as though somewhere along the line, I drifted off onto something else without realising, only to find that what I WAS doing is still sitting there waiting for me to finish it. If I'm on the phone and there is any sort of background noise, I can't zone in on either so I have to insist on complete silence whilst I try to concentrate on what people are saying to me.

My job is very important to me and, based on my previous efforts, I am very well respected in what I do and am holding a position which, in reality, is something that three people would struggle to do; I had never been mentally average - for instance, I passed my English language exams at school FOUR YEARS early and at the age of nine had a reading age of NINETEEN.

I have been for cognitive testing twice in the past three years and both times I was deemed to be mentally proficient - or 'average'. In my eyes, the tests were not real-world enough to deem me anything other than 'average'. As a graphics man, looking at pictures is something I'm supposed to take seriously, so matching up pairs isn't the most taxing of exercises; I was read a story and it was about a man - whose name I couldn't even remember - who ran a shop that was being demolished to make space for a shopping centre. My work is comprehensively connected to the retail sector and I know all about these things, so answering questions on the subject was a doddle. I explained this, but it wasn't deemed important... but again, that's digression.

To end ('Thank God', I hear you utter), I'm in limbo. Memory is a huge issue, concentration is a major concern and it's causing me to be moody, sometimes angry and at times, so down that it's troubling. And now, having read this post so far, I'm majorly convinced that it's down to the meds. I shall be bringing it up at my next appointment.

I'd like to know people's thoughts as to whether they think that the above is relevant to them and, more importantly, as to whether you think that Lamotrogine might be the demon I now think it is!

Thank you for your time!

Dazzer21 

 

Sorry if you've read this elsewhere - I'm reposting here as this appears to be a newer thread:

 

I've been tearing myself to pieces over this of late and to find this post has been a bit of a revelation. So much so, I had to register and participte. My issues are thus (this might waffle on a bit...):

I'm on Lamotrogine 2x200mg per day, and have been for around 12 years. I'm a 42 year old male. I developed photosensitive epilepsy when I was a toddler, the cause being put down as being a bad reaction to a whooping cough injection. I went through my formative years, probably up to my mid teens, having grand-mal seizures, mainly due to teenage angst circled around my lack of respect for my medication; they were real thrashers - my body ached for days afterwards. My medical history during this time was very well documented due to my regular tests, EEGs and such (no brain scans, though) and oputpatients visits.

Then things calmed down and the medication was on top of it all without incident. I was able to work proficiently, I was passed fit to drive and was able to live a normal life. In 2002, I woke up one morning and couldn't remember a thing about the day before - it had been my eldest child's sports day, which was a hot, sunny day and I wasn't wearing a hat; it was presumed to be a mild case of sunstroke and I carried on about my day. Sure enough, as the day progressed, I started to remember more as I was reminded about it. This was about a year after being transferred to Lamotrogine. Previously I had been on Epilim (1000mg per day!), and before that, Epanutin (chalky, chewable tablets - yuk!).

2 years previous to this, I moved house - about 40 miles away. I still worked near where I previously lived and, deciding that keeping continuity going was best policy, I remained with my then-current GP and consultant. However, as time moved on, it was deemed more convenient to move things to closer to where I live now and I transferred.

Things seemed to move pretty quickly under the new regime and very soon I was put in for a brainscan. The result of that was pretty startling - I have a temporal lobe arachnoid cyst on the left side of my brain, and quite sizeable it is too! I'd already started to experience patchy memory and concentration issues and the location of the cyst (in an area of the brain that controls such functions as logic and memory issues) seemed to - in my mind - put this down as the root cause of my problems; thank God my work is mainly creative!! (I'm a graphic designer). One thing that the new lot have refused to do so far is refer to any previous medical records, but I digress.

So that's my history, here's where I am now...

I'm getting pretty close to being terminally frustrated about this 'condition'; With regards to my work, I have gone from being absolutely brilliant at my job (and that's client's testiments, not my own) to being pretty good at best and, at times, damn-near incompetent, although I am in a position where, most of the time, I can cover up or rectify any issues before it all goes tits-up! Sometimes I forget things virtually as soon as they are said to me, other times not. Sometimes I get on with a task only to get to a stage where it dawns on me that I didn't complete it, as though somewhere along the line, I drifted off onto something else without realising, only to find that what I WAS doing is still sitting there waiting for me to finish it. If I'm on the phone and there is any sort of background noise, I can't zone in on either so I have to insist on complete silence whilst I try to concentrate on what people are saying to me.

My job is very important to me and, based on my previous efforts, I am very well respected in what I do and am holding a position which, in reality, is something that three people would struggle to do; I had never been mentally average - for instance, I passed my English language exams at school FOUR YEARS early and at the age of nine had a reading age of NINETEEN.

I have been for cognitive testing twice in the past three years and both times I was deemed to be mentally proficient - or 'average'. In my eyes, the tests were not real-world enough to deem me anything other than 'average'. As a graphics man, looking at pictures is something I'm supposed to take seriously, so matching up pairs isn't the most taxing of exercises; I was read a story and it was about a man - whose name I couldn't even remember - who ran a shop that was being demolished to make space for a shopping centre. My work is comprehensively connected to the retail sector and I know all about these things, so answering questions on the subject was a doddle. I explained this, but it wasn't deemed important... but again, that's digression.

To end ('Thank God', I hear you utter), I'm in limbo. Memory is a huge issue, concentration is a major concern and it's causing me to be moody, sometimes angry and at times, so down that it's troubling. And now, having read this post so far, I'm majorly convinced that it's down to the meds. I shall be bringing it up at my next appointment.

I'd like to know people's thoughts as to whether they think that the above is relevant to them and, more importantly, as to whether you think that Lamotrogine might be the demon I now think it is!

Thank you for your time!

Dazzer21 

 

Re: Memory Loss & Lamictal

Submitted by Dazzer21 on Mon, 2012-02-13 - 09:45

Wow! I hope this gets read...

I've been tearing myself to pieces over this of late and to find this post has been a bit of a revelation. So much so, I had to register and participte. My issues are thus (this might waffle on a bit...):

I'm on Lamotrogine 2x200mg per day, and have been for around 12 years. I'm a 42 year old male. I developed photosensitive epilepsy when I was a toddler, the cause being put down as being a bad reaction to a whooping cough injection. I went through my formative years, probably up to my mid teens, having grand-mal seizures, mainly due to teenage angst circled around my lack of respect for my medication; they were real thrashers - my body ached for days afterwards. My medical history during this time was very well documented due to my regular tests, EEGs and such (no brain scans, though) and oputpatients visits.

Then things calmed down and the medication was on top of it all without incident. I was able to work proficiently, I was passed fit to drive and was able to live a normal life. In 2002, I woke up one morning and couldn't remember a thing about the day before - it had been my eldest child's sports day, which was a hot, sunny day and I wasn't wearing a hat; it was presumed to be a mild case of sunstroke and I carried on about my day. Sure enough, as the day progressed, I started to remember more as I was reminded about it. This was about a year after being transferred to Lamotrogine. Previously I had been on Epilim (1000mg per day!), and before that, Epanutin (chalky, chewable tablets - yuk!).

2 years previous to this, I moved house - about 40 miles away. I still worked near where I previously lived and, deciding that keeping continuity going was best policy, I remained with my then-current GP and consultant. However, as time moved on, it was deemed more convenient to move things to closer to where I live now and I transferred.

Things seemed to move pretty quickly under the new regime and very soon I was put in for a brainscan. The result of that was pretty startling - I have a temporal lobe arachnoid cyst on the left side of my brain, and quite sizeable it is too! I'd already started to experience patchy memory and concentration issues and the location of the cyst (in an area of the brain that controls such functions as logic and memory issues) seemed to - in my mind - put this down as the root cause of my problems; thank God my work is mainly creative!! (I'm a graphic designer). One thing that the new lot have refused to do so far is refer to any previous medical records, but I digress.

So that's my history, here's where I am now...

I'm getting pretty close to being terminally frustrated about this 'condition'; With regards to my work, I have gone from being absolutely brilliant at my job (and that's client's testiments, not my own) to being pretty good at best and, at times, damn-near incompetent, although I am in a position where, most of the time, I can cover up or rectify any issues before it all goes tits-up! Sometimes I forget things virtually as soon as they are said to me, other times not. Sometimes I get on with a task only to get to a stage where it dawns on me that I didn't complete it, as though somewhere along the line, I drifted off onto something else without realising, only to find that what I WAS doing is still sitting there waiting for me to finish it. If I'm on the phone and there is any sort of background noise, I can't zone in on either so I have to insist on complete silence whilst I try to concentrate on what people are saying to me.

My job is very important to me and, based on my previous efforts, I am very well respected in what I do and am holding a position which, in reality, is something that three people would struggle to do; I had never been mentally average - for instance, I passed my English language exams at school FOUR YEARS early and at the age of nine had a reading age of NINETEEN.

I have been for cognitive testing twice in the past three years and both times I was deemed to be mentally proficient - or 'average'. In my eyes, the tests were not real-world enough to deem me anything other than 'average'. As a graphics man, looking at pictures is something I'm supposed to take seriously, so matching up pairs isn't the most taxing of exercises; I was read a story and it was about a man - whose name I couldn't even remember - who ran a shop that was being demolished to make space for a shopping centre. My work is comprehensively connected to the retail sector and I know all about these things, so answering questions on the subject was a doddle. I explained this, but it wasn't deemed important... but again, that's digression.

To end ('Thank God', I hear you utter), I'm in limbo. Memory is a huge issue, concentration is a major concern and it's causing me to be moody, sometimes angry and at times, so down that it's troubling. And now, having read this post so far, I'm majorly convinced that it's down to the meds. I shall be bringing it up at my next appointment.

I'd like to know people's thoughts as to whether they think that the above is relevant to them and, more importantly, as to whether you think that Lamotrogine might be the demon I now think it is!

Thank you for your time!

Dazzer21 

Wow! I hope this gets read...

I've been tearing myself to pieces over this of late and to find this post has been a bit of a revelation. So much so, I had to register and participte. My issues are thus (this might waffle on a bit...):

I'm on Lamotrogine 2x200mg per day, and have been for around 12 years. I'm a 42 year old male. I developed photosensitive epilepsy when I was a toddler, the cause being put down as being a bad reaction to a whooping cough injection. I went through my formative years, probably up to my mid teens, having grand-mal seizures, mainly due to teenage angst circled around my lack of respect for my medication; they were real thrashers - my body ached for days afterwards. My medical history during this time was very well documented due to my regular tests, EEGs and such (no brain scans, though) and oputpatients visits.

Then things calmed down and the medication was on top of it all without incident. I was able to work proficiently, I was passed fit to drive and was able to live a normal life. In 2002, I woke up one morning and couldn't remember a thing about the day before - it had been my eldest child's sports day, which was a hot, sunny day and I wasn't wearing a hat; it was presumed to be a mild case of sunstroke and I carried on about my day. Sure enough, as the day progressed, I started to remember more as I was reminded about it. This was about a year after being transferred to Lamotrogine. Previously I had been on Epilim (1000mg per day!), and before that, Epanutin (chalky, chewable tablets - yuk!).

2 years previous to this, I moved house - about 40 miles away. I still worked near where I previously lived and, deciding that keeping continuity going was best policy, I remained with my then-current GP and consultant. However, as time moved on, it was deemed more convenient to move things to closer to where I live now and I transferred.

Things seemed to move pretty quickly under the new regime and very soon I was put in for a brainscan. The result of that was pretty startling - I have a temporal lobe arachnoid cyst on the left side of my brain, and quite sizeable it is too! I'd already started to experience patchy memory and concentration issues and the location of the cyst (in an area of the brain that controls such functions as logic and memory issues) seemed to - in my mind - put this down as the root cause of my problems; thank God my work is mainly creative!! (I'm a graphic designer). One thing that the new lot have refused to do so far is refer to any previous medical records, but I digress.

So that's my history, here's where I am now...

I'm getting pretty close to being terminally frustrated about this 'condition'; With regards to my work, I have gone from being absolutely brilliant at my job (and that's client's testiments, not my own) to being pretty good at best and, at times, damn-near incompetent, although I am in a position where, most of the time, I can cover up or rectify any issues before it all goes tits-up! Sometimes I forget things virtually as soon as they are said to me, other times not. Sometimes I get on with a task only to get to a stage where it dawns on me that I didn't complete it, as though somewhere along the line, I drifted off onto something else without realising, only to find that what I WAS doing is still sitting there waiting for me to finish it. If I'm on the phone and there is any sort of background noise, I can't zone in on either so I have to insist on complete silence whilst I try to concentrate on what people are saying to me.

My job is very important to me and, based on my previous efforts, I am very well respected in what I do and am holding a position which, in reality, is something that three people would struggle to do; I had never been mentally average - for instance, I passed my English language exams at school FOUR YEARS early and at the age of nine had a reading age of NINETEEN.

I have been for cognitive testing twice in the past three years and both times I was deemed to be mentally proficient - or 'average'. In my eyes, the tests were not real-world enough to deem me anything other than 'average'. As a graphics man, looking at pictures is something I'm supposed to take seriously, so matching up pairs isn't the most taxing of exercises; I was read a story and it was about a man - whose name I couldn't even remember - who ran a shop that was being demolished to make space for a shopping centre. My work is comprehensively connected to the retail sector and I know all about these things, so answering questions on the subject was a doddle. I explained this, but it wasn't deemed important... but again, that's digression.

To end ('Thank God', I hear you utter), I'm in limbo. Memory is a huge issue, concentration is a major concern and it's causing me to be moody, sometimes angry and at times, so down that it's troubling. And now, having read this post so far, I'm majorly convinced that it's down to the meds. I shall be bringing it up at my next appointment.

I'd like to know people's thoughts as to whether they think that the above is relevant to them and, more importantly, as to whether you think that Lamotrogine might be the demon I now think it is!

Thank you for your time!

Dazzer21 

Re: Memory Loss & Lamictal

Submitted by comment on Wed, 2013-05-22 - 20:24
Thank you for taking the time to sum up your history and the effects you have experienced from Lamictal. My side effects mirror yours and I take great pride in my job and it is someone's challenging to cover up the inadequacy caused by my medication. Your post is over a year old. Did you change medications, if so, what has transpired? Best of luck! David

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