Seven

I am currently taking 100mg of Lamotrigine and have been for over 20 years. It helped me turn my life around as prior to taking it I was unable to function properly due to OCD. I continue to have had my struggles with anxiety and OCD over the years however I have found things a lot more challenging over the recent years mainly due to night time wakening with severe anxiety and checking behaviours. I haven’t tried any new drugs but have had therapy on and off which has been only a slight help. My psychiatrist has now suggested I try the SSRI Escitalopram, staring at 5mg for a week increasing to 10mg. I have been told there are little in the way of side effects. I have tried various SSRIs in the past before I found Lamotrigine and none really helped. I am willing to give Escitalopram a try however my concern is around whether it actually makes my anxiety worse. Has anyone found this with this specific drug? I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Thanks for the responses. I do exercise regularly as I know it has a very positive impact on my anxiety levels and sleep. I will certainly consult with my Dr before making any med changes.

Hi, I have been on Lamotrigine long term consistently at 100mg. I started it around 20 years ago and had one break between 2014-2018 when I went med free. I went back on it when my son was two and I was struggling which was linked to sleep deprivation. 5 years on and I'm considering coming off it again. My life is quite settled in terms of work and my son is now 7. Whilst he isn't the best of sleepers he sleeps a lot better than when he was a toddler. I have been having a horrendous time with middle of the night anxiety and wondered if it could be linked to Lamotrigine. When I am rested my OCD is more under control. However as I progress through my working week I feel the OCD taking hold halfway through the week and come Thurs/Fri I feel very fatigued. Whilst I definitely need more rest at this point I find the opposite happens as I'm more anxious and my sleep deteriorates. I have never been the best of sleepers but the nights over the last 3 years have been torturous and just now at their worst. If I waken during the night I often get stuck on checking rituals generally around the lights in the bedroom/ensuite(if I have been for a pee) trying to convince myself they are off(even if I haven't turned any on!). This involves scanning the room repetitively to try to feel certain they are off and getting out of bed again and again to stare into the ensuite to try to convince myself the lights are off. Of course I never really get to that point but I find it so difficult to live with uncertainty at 2 or 3am. I can sometimes be checking for a couple of hours. Sometimes I get back to sleep and sometimes not. On average over the last year I have one of these nights weekly when I'm lucky to get 3 hours sleep. The next day I feel totally exhausted. Recently however the frequency of these nights has increased and over the last couple of months they have been happening twice per week. I am wondering if my medication is now not right for me. I have been reading lately about sleeplessness and fatigue being common side effects of the drug. I would certainly say that tiredness is the trigger for my OCD and the night time rituals generally start when I begin to feel fatigued towards the end of the working week. Lamotrigine turned my life around 20 years ago but I'm wondering if you can get to the point when a drug is no longer right for you. I am now middle aged sadly and my body and life is very different. I am strongly considering coming off it. I recently spoke with my psychiatrist who suggested I took 100mg in the morning to see if it would improve things. If anything it has made things worse. What are people's experiences of a drug that once worked for them no longer having the same impact? Also what are peoples experience of sleeplessness and fatigue on Lamotrigine?

Thanks for the advice Christina. Living with the uncertainty during the night is the huge struggle. During the daytime it seems to be more manageable as I can change my focus and move away from the troublesome thoughts. Wakening at night, I am alone with my anxiety and the repetitive, irrational thoughts and urges with little distraction. I have a fear that if I were to get up and watch TV that would bring on further checking if I were to then try to return to bed(eg. checking that the TV definitely off, that lights outside of the bedroom are off). At my most tired I am most vulnerable to the checking and it really takes control of me. I find it so hard to employ any ERP which is why I was considering some kind of sleep aid to take when I wake in the middle of the night

Hi, I have struggled with OCD for the last 25 years. It has been in various forms and to this day it continues to take on different forms. The biggest struggle I have just now is around checking, in particular lights, during the night to ensure they are off. When I go to bed I struggle with checking and have a routine when I go to the ensuite at bedtime which involves staring continuously at the window to ensure it's closed and locked, moving onto the shaving socket to convince myself nothing is plugged in and finally once I am done staring at the tap to convince myself it is off. On a bad night I could be in the ensuite checking these 3 things for a total of 15 minutes. I then go into my bed when further checking takes place - staring at the bedroom door to convince myself it's closed(fear of it banging if it's a windy night) and staring at the blinds to convince myself they are closed. I then struggle to place my glasses on my bedside repetitively placing them down, staring at them to convince myself I have put them down "correctly" to avoid them getting damaged. My partner puts her bedside light on and then I check the room scanning it repetitively to convince myself all lights are out. This is the bit I find most distressing, scanning the room from one side to the order to convince myself the lights are out and it can sometimes go on for 15 minutes. Once I move on I generally get to sleep quickly. However the real distress comes if I wake during the night for example if I need the toilet or my 7 year old is up during the night. This is when the light checking really spirals of control. I will scan the room over and over to try to convince myself the lights are out without ever succeeding. The checking can last well over an hour and often when I try to move on and get some sleep the doubt about the lights eats away at me and I will start the process all over again. It's the drive for certainty that is behind the compulsions. During the day I have checking compulsions amongst other things but I can move on from then through refocusing. During the night it's so much more challenging as it's difficult to refocus when the focus is sleep and the doubts won't leave me alone. I do sometimes read which can help sometimes but it's not always an option as it disturbs my partner. It also doesn't remove me from the situation so even when reading I'm still stopping to check. I have spoken to therapists about the during the night checking and they have not offered me any specific strategies to deal with this. Their approach to to try to improve the day time and the night time will hopefully take care of itself. Well that isn't happening and weekly I am having at least one night where I wake around 2/3am, carry out the checking for a couple of hours and usually don't get back to sleep. I get so frustrated with myself to the extent I sometimes thump my head and then start the day exhausted and depressed by the previous nights activity. The other during the day compulsions intensify as a result of sleep deprivation. Does anyone else suffer from such disturbed nights? I do sometimes take paracetamol/CBD oil to try to help me get back to sleep. My psychiatrist has given me Quetiapine, Zopiclone and Diazepam to take at night to help(not all at once!). I have all 3 in my possession but have noticed that only the Diazepam is in date. I have never taken them partly because it's not every night I am disturbed and they seem quite intense. However the frequency and intensity of my checking is increasing and becoming more distressing. My questions to the forum are- - does anyone have strategies to cope with during the night checking? - what are people's experiences of using the drugs I mention above? - can anyone recommend any other medications/alternative medications that might settle me when I am in one of these checking loops? Thanks, in advance, for any support you can offer!