Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

I have burned through most of the meds and my doctor wants to try me on lamotrigine. It is an anti-convulsant but is also used for bipolar and depression. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with it.

Gee chipmunk, I have no idea. You might want to try other forums? Not sure what the relevance to WED would be, in that case, but at least you might become forewarned of potential side effects.

I looked on the crazyboards forum but most people there take it for bipolar and are glad it doesn't cause weight gain. I was hoping someone here might have tried it for WED.

It's listed in the Green RLS bible, but there was only one study of 5 people, and one person dropped out - so not much to go on there. But, it showed promise in the remaining 4, IIRC (I read it earlier today and am not positive I'm remembering correctly).

If this medication takes care of bi-polar, depression and RLS/WED wouldn't it be wonderful to only take one drug.

Polar Bear wrote:If this medication takes care of bi-polar, depression and RLS/WED wouldn't it be wonderful to only take one drug.

Yes, and that's why they think it might be good for me - I don't have bipolar but I have severe depression. Normally I would have to up my dose of anti-depressants in the fall to head off the SAD, making my legs worse, but maybe the lamotrigine will both make my legs better AND improve the depression. It almost sounds too good to be true.

Are you going to try it, or are you still considering it.

Took the first dose tonight. You have to go really slowly or you risk a severe reaction, so it will be a month or two before I know if it's really helping or not. I took 12.5 mg tonight, will do that for two weeks, then do 25 mg for two weeks, and so on until I get to 100 mg.

Apparently it's a really great drug but so many people have serious reactions to it that it's usually only used as a third- or fourth-string drug. I still can't help but have hope--you know how it is--that this drug will be The One? Somehow my heart forgets that I thought the same thing about Ambien, a couple benzos, Mirapex, codeine, gabapentin, etc. etc.

But still I hope.

Chipmunk wrote:
But still I hope.

Maybe that's what makes us persevere, you know?

I hope it works well, too.

I really hope you have a success with this medication.

Thank you. You guys are so sweet.

There's not even anything silly about hoping, even though you've been wrong about all the other meds, becaue you're trying something *different* every time, so this one may indeed be The One! Why not? It's only silly to hope if you're trying the same thing over again.

I do remember there being a couple people in this forum who have had good experiences with lamotrigine. Have you tried the search engine here? Anticonvulsants are used to treat WED/RLS, but most doctors stick with Lyrica or Neurontin (gabapentin) because they aren't associated with the more serious side effects of some of the other anticonvulsants.

I hope it works for you.

No of course I didn't try the search engine because that would be too logical LOL! I will have to do that when I finish catching up here.

I was on that medication for almost a year and it didn't go anything for my RLS I wish it would have. I also was taking Deplin. If you don't get good results for managing your depression, ask your doctor about Deplin. It's considered a 'medical food', it helps for some people who do not process vitamin B properly into folic acid, thus, they don't respond well with regular anti-depressants. Adding Deplin provides that conversion and gives your anti depressant a boost. So for helping depression it worked, but for helping RLS, it didn't do anything for me.