Sad stuff indeed. After almost losing my daughter to suicide from Lamictal, approved for "bipolar depression", all I can say is Look Out.

My heart goes out to this Mom.

I love how the FDA(appears) to find out a day late and a dollar short that they need to add a "warning" to any drug.

This sure is a fact/ a real pattern that people need to be aware of; is that these drugs(all)are fast tracked asap based on marketing schemes..first one out of the gate "wins" and it is SO predictable that the warnings only come after tragic events.

I feel that is the most important message this story and others speak: the FDA is not watching your back in the U.S.--it only covers asses when things go wrong.

I was put on Lamictal and it made me suicidal. I took 20,000 mg of Soma to end my life. This all started after trying Lamictal. This drug has very dangerous side effects. I was so suicidal, but never had been before. I am suffering from permannent damage from my suicide attempt.

My daughter, Catherine, aged 19, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and in December 2007 as rapid cycling and put on Lamictal or Lamotrigine as it is called in the UK. She was unable to cope with some difficult life circumstances whilst she was on it and took her own life in March, just 5 weeks after admission into hospital overnight with a mixed episode and she appeared to remain manic or hypomanic (although her psychiatrist at a visit over 3 weeks before she died had said she was "stable") until up to her death although we were unaware of her risk and it was difficult to distinguish her behaviours at times and she was very secretive. The drug had been increased from 75mg to 100mg at the March visit.
The Inquest has yet to be heard but there was an appalling lack of urgency from the Mental Health Services who should have reviewed her regularly and did not respond to her "disengaging" from them.
I have informed the drug company and hope they investigate thoroughly. I have lost my faith in our Mental Health Services here and would not trust them one bit! Lack of communication and vigilence has cost my daughter her life and given us a lifetime of sorrow and regret.

My brother only 27 commited suicide shortly after starting this medication for bipolar disorder. It has only been 6 days since his passing, and I m sure he would still be here if it wasnt for this medication.

I currently take Lamictal and am terrified at what I am reading here. I have struggled with terrible suicidal thoughts and am weaning myself off of this medication. It is a horrible medicinem yet is dubbed the best drug with the least side effects? I am currently on 100mg, it is hard to believe that 400mg is the maintenance dose!

I was not warned whatsoever about Lamictal increasing these thoughts. In fact, antidepressants get more warning labels than the "mood stabilizers" do, I am so, so sorry for those of you who have lost a loved one due to this medication.

My heart goes out to the lady who lost her son. I'm so sorry.

I am currently on Lamictal. I have been on it for two years. I have suicidal thoughts all the time that were non existent before I went on it. I switched from dilantin to lamictal and I am going to switch back when the semester is over. this is rediculous. I figured this would be a good med.. used for bipolar too.. can't go wrong except I'm not bipolar and this makes me want to end my life. I know it is the drug so i'm going to switch.
I wish I would have had the warning.

I have been on Lamictal for a few years. I did at one point have bad thoughts but I ended a bad relationship and they went away. I think the medicine may have fueled the thoughts but didn't start the thoughts. In other words, for me, there was something else in my life that made me have thoughts initially. The meds probably didn't help when I was depressed but I dealt with the original problem and everything got better. I'm not saying the same goes for everyone b/c every person's body reacts differently. But just something to think about.

I was diagnosed with epilepsy in late December this year. My Doctor put on lamictol, starting off at 100mg and after a particularly bad seizure raised it up to 300mg. 150mg in the morning, and 150mg at night.
I myself have had clinical depression since I was 14, I'm 19 right now, almost 20, and have been in and out of therapy since I was 16 in which I was diagnosed with ADD. Half of my depression is caused by all the problems I have [back surgery at age 14] and after starting lamictol I almost feel better than I used to.

I know it's used as a mood stabilizer for people with bi polar, and ever since I started taking it I dont get as angry as I used to and my depression has turned more into just sad, but when the mg was raised my depression came back. Maybe it doesn't affect me as much because I already know what the depression feels like, but by going back to therapy it helped me get back to a good spot in my life.

Being diagnosed with epilepsy it's self can cause people to go into depression, even without the medicine. It cuts off a lot of things in a persons life and can even take away things the patient loves/and or things that help calm them down. For me it was hard to stop taking baths, riding my bike, and horseback riding.

I know medications can cause irrational negative thoughts which happened with one of my ADD meds, but it should also be in consideration that a patient might need to go into therapy even if the meds dont cause irrational thoughts like that. it terrible that some meds do that but with every new medication you have to be wary of any side affects wether or not it says on the bottle.

I'm sorry to the parents that had to deal with the loses from the medications.
Suicide is terrible, I myself have to deal with an ulcer that I recieved after trying to do it myself but that was before the lamictol.

I started taking lamictal a little over a year ago and have never felt worse. My depression has gotten out of control and so have my OCD obsessions. Never in my life have I thought about suicide, but since taking this med I think about it at least once or twice a month. No doctor I talk to will believe that it is the medication. All I know is I was never like this before I started taking it!

It seems that the side-effects linger long after you discontinue the drug. It has been a few months since I have taken Lamictal and I am still struggling with the depression. It is a wicked medication that no person should be prescribed.

I was struggling with my ex-girlfriend and fall in depression. I`ve been pretty depressed for all of my life because of a bad foster family. My mother and father had a serious alcohol problem and they couldn't raise me.

Doctor said that I have a bipolar diagnose of II-type and start to "cure" with lamictal. I`ve been using that medicine for almost 2 years now.

He suggest to start with a small 25mg/day.I felt a difference in 1 day. I really fall in love with that drug because I felt like I had taken ecstasy because it helped me so much. Then doctor said that it CANT effect because 25mg is just not enough. I felt that I was getting better and try to avoid it but he suggest me to do it. Every week he told me to increase 25mg more as soon as its in 200mg.

Suddenly I left my ex-girlfriend and stopped school. Then I just went to a work but at the moment I cant even go to job. I`ve been changing all the time and I have lost almost all of my friends. I feel like i`m a "outsider" all the time and I think really grayscaled about all of my friends and other people. My sexuality has been changing and right know I think that im going crazy. I had suicide thoughts when I used drugs as ecstasy, weed and amphetamine. Nowadays I have schizophrenic thoughts if I use drugs or alcohol. Even if I dont use drugs or alcohol I try to avoid people and im not thinking clearly about anything.

I have to say that I was still a cheerful and funny guy and told jokes all the time before this medicine no matter what shit I`ve been facing in my childhood.

I will stop this drug. My doctor said that if I stop I will make a suicide! :O I will not do it. I am strong person and I can get out of it. I want to get back to my own mind and get out of this shit!

Do NOT stop right away. Just slowly decrease because i think that it could cause serious problems in mental health and suicide risk may increase. You can leave without it because you lived without it before. If you feel like you can`t handle your feeling say to your friend, girfriend/boyfriend or parents and ask for a support! Doctor will NOT help you to stop medicine.

If you have something to ask or you would like to talk about it just mail me: holdemgrinder@gmail.com

Hopefully this helps.

I was diagnosed in May 07 with epilepsy and have been on lamictal ever since. I have had only two siezures 6 years apart but take 100mg twice daily. Aside from headaches and ringing in the ears the 1st year I felt no different in every day life. My neurologist said Lamictal has the least side effects and I hear awful things about dilantin and other anti-siezure medications, so I followed with doctors orders.
Only about 6 months ago I started to vision myself committing suicide. I am starting to worry as I sometimes avoid aspects of daily life because I think to myself "well I'll be dead soon anyways". Feeling this way really sucks, and although I deal with moderate anxiety I have not had these thoughts before. I was under the impression that I needed therapy for some sub-conscious thoughts, but could it be the medication? Hopefully someone reads this and feels similar because I sometimes consider finding hotlines....

Rob,
Ha, tons of people here have felt that way, some of us many times and for various reasons.

Don't hesitate to call a hotline. The hardest part about being suicidal, I've found, isn't death--it's the excruciating loneliness of being in that place. Whatever you can do to break that isolation helps. Many times I found just being able to TALK about the fact I wanted to kill myself helped me feel so much less painfully alone that I was able to go on with my day. It can be hard to find people strong enough to listen. A lot of professionals can't handle it, some can.

The best place I found to call is the Samaritans. You can also e-mail them. Their volunteers write back using the name "Jo"--it's gender neutral. There was a time in my life when I phoned them every morning at 10:00 am to let them know I was still alive. I was going through a really hard time. I got a different volunteer every time, some of whom seemed rather puzzled by my call. I didn't care. I was determined to make it. As you can see, I did.

The thing I like about the Samaritans is that they show enormous respect to their callers. They do not bother to try and talk you out of it, they will never trace the call to get you "help". They won't send anyone to break down your door or otherwise violate you. They just... listen, a quality in scant supply these days.

By the way, I'm doing much better now and doubt I'll be in need of calling them again, though I wouldn't hesitate to do so.

I don't know much about Lamictal, but others here do. I just wanted to encourage you and let you know you've been heard.

I was put on Lamictal about two years ago. I have had moderate depression throughout my life, but am NOT bipolar or manic depressive. I was put on this as a "mood stabilizer" due to the fact that I was a drug user from the time I was about 13, and then got clean and had trouble adjusting I guess you could say. I immediately got suicidal from this medication, and also got VERY aggressive. I would say I was quite a dangerous individual on this medication. Needless to say, I stopped quickly. Probably within three weeks or so. The suicidal thoughts and aggression stopped as soon as I stopped. Keep in mind also, I am VERY tolerant of almost all drugs, due to my extensive history of drug abuse. I have also been on tons of Rx meds in my life, and NONE had ever had such a profound effect on me. This stuff is bad news.

Put on low dose of Lamictal in Sept 2009 and taken off Effexor. Doc thought I was having mania from the Effexor because of severe insomnia. Because this is not my field of study, I listened to the specialist. I'm in my 40's, never had previous problems except for some occasional mild/moderate depression. Felt on a downward spiral with Lamictal, ending with suicidal ideation, mood swings, crying and 3 day memory loss. At the time I was on 75 mg daily. This has never happened before. I'm a licensed medical professional and I will never prescribe this med to anyone again. When I taper completely off, will never take it again and we are preparing to contact GSK. Certainly the medication works for some, but there is increasing evidence that it significantly increases the risk of suicide in too many people. We in the medical profession often do not listen to other people well and dismiss certain complaints from patients. It is probably good on some level, when we experience complications and side effects. It will make me a better advocate and listener. I am sorry to all of you who have had problems and/or losses too. This has been a horrible experience for me and apparently devastating to many of you for different reasons.