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Lamotrigine resolved picky eating?

A

Aetherius Rimor

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Joined
Jan 16, 2012
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My psychiatrist has recently prescribed me Lamictal for my bi-polar, and I've noticed a very interesting positive side effect.

I've been a picky eater my whole life. Complex textures or strong flavors have been unpalatable to the point I couldn't eat most candy, most vegetables, most meats and most fruits. My diet has consisted primarily of ground beef, dairy, simple fruits (grapes/apples/bananas) and breads.

Since taking lamictal however I've noticed most foods I normally could not eat, are now palatable. I've been experimenting with various vegetables, and condiments I normally could not eat.

Could there be a potential for this class of medication (sodium ion channel blockers crossing the blood brain barrier) of treating over-sensitivity to various sensations such as taste?

It's been an overall positive experience using this medication, and I'm curious how much of the changes are related to its pharmacology or to it's behavioral changes related to it treating my bi-polar.
 
I think the pro palatability effects would be more due to its non-trivial antagonism of the 5HT3 receptor (also a sodium channel). Drugs acting on that receptor have been used clinically for decades now.
 
Or maybe it was an indirect anxiolytic effect - the pickiness you had was likely less to do with taste perception alone, and perhaps more to do with how you overthought the sensations and whatnot.
 
How much lamotrigine are you taking?

Have tried this in the past, and it did not do much at all- think I was on 250 or 300mg/d. As it's the only "mood stabilizer" that is said to help against depressive episodes too. And it modulates AMPA receptors (while I have thought that an AMPA blockade is unfavorable, there is a recent thread about an anti-epileptic that blocks AMPA and possibly shares some effects with NMDA antagonists, so I could be wrong).
 
On 600mg (!) a day for years, it gives me a perfect sense of pitch (am sound engineer), which is really strange and immensely helpful in that industry.

I have no idea why, but I assume something in the temporal lobes being stabilized is the reason. I think the high dose has something to do with it.
 
Spoke to my psychiatrist today about it and he said it was a good theory.

Just wanted to give an update :)
 
Aetherius Rimor said:
My psychiatrist has recently prescribed me Lamictal for my bi-polar, and I've noticed a very interesting positive side effect.
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Lamotrigine seems to be great, people on it are happy, consider yourself lucky.

Since taking lamictal however I've noticed most foods I normally could not eat, are now palatable. I've been experimenting with various vegetables, and condiments I normally could not eat.
Click to expand...

s/could/would/g

Could there be a potential for this class of medication (sodium ion channel blockers crossing the blood brain barrier) of treating over-sensitivity to various sensations such as taste?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but if you're ever to get over this problem you're going to have to put forth effort and sometimes just grin and bear it and eat whatever's in front of you. Eat spicy food, wear out your tongue, then eat whatever.

Or maybe it was an indirect anxiolytic effect - the pickiness you had was likely less to do with taste perception alone, and perhaps more to do with how you overthought the sensations and whatnot.
Click to expand...

This has always been my firm belief. My suspicion of olives and tomatoes evaporated forever after I just forced myself to eat a bunch of the things. Granted, the fact that I started while rolling helped. I've watched too many "picky eaters" simply get over it to honestly believe it's a persistent problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

It's never too late to try.
 
It's called a gag reflex.

Vegetables would make me dry heave. Dry heaving at a dinner table is not considered polite. So I abstained for my benefit as well as everyone elses.

Now they don't trigger my gag reflex and they actually taste good. Don't presume ;)
 
Lamotrigine is the 2nd best med for me- it helped a lot
Altho one time i took my 400mg dose on an empty stomach and ended up puking in a Chipotle bathroom
other than that smooth sailing
 
Did you know op this drug gives like 15 percent of people a deadly, irreversible rash within several hours?

Your lucky.
 
I'm gonna say bullshit on that one. Stephen-Johnson syndrome is pretty... idiopathic. And 15% lethality for a drug means it wouldn't be used in anything but chemotherapy.
 
This is what a doctor told me. I stopped taking it however. I never got rashes, but what do you mean by idiopathic?
 
Even taking the most pessimistic estimates Lamotrigine causes a serious rash in less than .1% of people that take it. Out of those .1% many can continue taking Lamotrigine safely at a lower dose:Details on the Lamotrigine Rash

You're not lucky to survive Lamotrigine, but you're incredibly unlucky if you don't.
 
Not really. Perhaps your doctor meant that, of the .1% of people that may develop the syndrome while taking the drug, 15% will experience mortality linked to SJS. Or something. Or we could keep in mind that doctors are simply people who went to school for longer than many of us and are not inherently smarter or more well-informed (though it is a nice surprise when one is at least the latter). My mom and several other friends/acquaintances are on lamotrigine for maladies ranging from epilepsy to bipolar disorder to depression, and most of them have had fantastic luck with it.
 
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