My husband is taking Zoloft and now the doctor wants him to try taking Lamictal once a day with the Zoloft. He hasn't been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but with Clinical Depression. He doesn't feel depressed but gets upset easily and can't relax. He is very hyper, the Zoloft helps but recently he said he felt a little out of control and couldn't stop talking and it made him feel uncomfortable. He has been stressed this month, but he doesn't have mood swings , the highs and lows that a friend of mine with bipolar disorder has. He is a perfectionist and is probably his own worst enemy. I read that Lamictal is used for bipolar illness but the doctor has never said that. He is always doing something at home , albeit the computer or fixing something. Although he does quite a lot of reading in his library at times. I just think that he has been busy at work and dealing with the death of his father and these last few weeks he has been working out where to put his Dad's ashes. What do you think? Is he bipolar>

I was taking Wellbutrin and Lamictal at the same time. I am currently weaning off of them.

My doctor prescribed Lamictal because no matter how much we increased the antidepressant, I was having a hard time maintaining a state of happiness. However, I definitely suffered from mood swings, irritability, and would have mini mania episodes. (i.e. a sudden burst of energy that would last for a week or so, especially if I was working on a project or something of great interest to me). After my energy burst, I would feel very tired, not sad, but just really tired for a while. Then I would even out again for a while. I started out small with the Lamictal, but then had to keep gradually increasing because it only seemed to help for a short time.

I don't know if I would recommend it because for me, it only seemed to act as a bandaid for a short time, then the meds had to be increased.

My advice is to give it some more time on the antidepressant alone. Psychotherapy worked wonders for me as well.

Thanks for your information. I agree with you, I would rather my husband stay on the Zoloft, but he said he might try the low dose of lamactil his doctor wants him to take for a month and if there is no change he will stay with the Zoloft. He is seeing a new general practitioner in December and he might have a different way to go. Thank you, again.

SSRi's can cause hypomania symptoms. Doesn't mean he is bi-polar, but the symptoms are possibly drug-induced.

Even after a long time on SSRi's, side effects can appear out of the blue or be culmative. It's entirely possible he is becoming hypomanic, which is not full-blown mania as of yet.

Lamictal is actually an antiseizure med also used for mania in bi-polars as it inhibits certain serotonin receptors. SSri's stimulate serotonin receptors, so basically they are inhibiting what the SSRi's are stimulating, I think, by adding Lamictal. It's a sort of medicating the medication tactic although they never really look at it that way.

Now if they want to use Lamictal exclusivly without Zoloft, he might have some withdrawals from Zoloft during the switch. Lamictal has an effect on both depression and mania. So this could, in theory, work but it it might not. Everyone is different. If it works,they could be shooting for a bi-polar diagnosis or at least suspicious of it,one does not need to be full-blown manic to get a Bipolar II diagnosis.

They simply have no test for brain serotonin. So when a person takes an SSRi, it is theoretically possible to at some point have too much, which can cause mania or irritability amongst other things. Now even while one can have too much, it can also, because of the desensitization of brain receptors psych meds can cause, make other serotonin receptors weaker, resulting in depression mixed in.

Apparentely there are a whole lot of serotonin receptors, while some become desensitized(or downregulated) from years of SSRi's, others can be hyperactivated(or upregulated) The ones desensitized are the ones the particular drug targets.

I read somewhere they do know stimulating(with drugs) some receptors causes other receptors not effected by the drugs to compensate for the actions from the drugs effect on the others.

So based on this downregualtion/upregulation they have discovered, there is another very unpopular theory out there(because it counters the chemical imbalance is fixed by our wonder drugs theory) that states drugs themselves can conceivably cause a chemical imbalance in the brain.

Many times unipolar people do end up with a bi-polar diagnosis down the line, the possibility of it being drug-induced is ignored by most in the field.... yet the drug literature itself warns of that side effect.

The drug companies(who must disclose all possible side effects to avoid being sued) like to excuse that up with a "predisposed person" or "latent bipolar" would only tend to be effected by this side effect, which is a bit ridiculous when you think how people are so different when it comes to any medication in their reactions.....even sensitivity to a simple peanut can sometimes be drastically different in some groups of people so why would a powerful drug be excluded from bad reaction as per sensitivity to something when a peanut hardly compares in substance to a chemical drug?

The answer is because it keeps people on more drugs.

I'm sure your husband is also under alot of stess with the death of his dad, too. That certainly is adding to things, very sorry to hear that.

My husband is taking Zoloft and now the doctor wants him to try taking Lamictal once a day with the Zoloft. He hasn't been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but with Clinical Depression. He doesn't feel depressed but gets upset easily and can't relax. He is very hyper, the Zoloft helps but recently he said he felt a little out of control and couldn't stop talking and it made him feel uncomfortable. He has been stressed this month, but he doesn't have mood swings , the highs and lows that a friend of mine with bipolar disorder has. He is a perfectionist and is probably his own worst enemy. I read that Lamictal is used for bipolar illness but the doctor has never said that. He is always doing something at home , albeit the computer or fixing something. Although he does quite a lot of reading in his library at times. I just think that he has been busy at work and dealing with the death of his father and these last few weeks he has been working out where to put his Dad's ashes. What do you think? Is he bipolar>

Feeling a little out of control is exactly how I felt with Zoloft and then Prozac....Lamictal is given for unipolar depression on occasion.