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Need Help Oxcarbazepine cognitive side effects

deficiT

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So I have been taking Oxcarbazepine for about a year. It has been the best med I've found to help with mood stability, with the least side effects on my personality or energy levels. But I have been noticing my executive function and cognitive processes slowing down a bit. Basically ADHD getting worse when I already struggle with those things.

My friend also noticed this same thing very clearly and she said I seemed slower in general. I take 600mg Oxcarbazepine, 2x a day.

Can anyone speak on their experiences or knowledge about this drug or other sodium blockers as related to cognitive side effects?
 
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Plausible. Guessing it's an Na+ VGIC inhibition, basically stopping a charge from making its way down the axon to fire at the end (axon terminal). So the vesicles are inhibited from releasing nt's into the collective area (synapse) of communication. So less glutamate is released, glutamate which is activating.

Don't know too much about it, never tried it, but there are a lot of bp/epilepsy meds that work this way.

None of them are perfect. I'd suggest lithium, but it can mess with short-term memory.

Is it more depression or mania that you experience? Lamotrigine is known for working on both, and a small incidence of side effects, and is also an Na+ inhibitor. They like to give depakote if mania is more the issue, somewhat of an atpyical, multi-facted GABAergic.

Nothing is perfect, I know you know. I guess work with the doc. I still get side effects from my meds, but overall they work.
 
Plausible. Guessing it's an Na+ VGIC inhibition, basically stopping a charge from making its way down the axon to fire at the end (axon terminal). So the vesicles are inhibited from releasing nt's into the collective area (synapse) of communication. So less glutamate is released, glutamate which is activating.

Don't know too much about it, never tried it, but there are a lot of bp/epilepsy meds that work this way.

None of them are perfect. I'd suggest lithium, but it can mess with short-term memory.

Is it more depression or mania that you experience? Lamotrigine is known for working on both, and a small incidence of side effects, and is also an Na+ inhibitor. They like to give depakote if mania is more the issue, somewhat of an atpyical, multi-facted GABAergic.

Nothing is perfect, I know you know. I guess work with the doc. I still get side effects from my meds, but overall they work.
Yeah, it has otherwise been helping a ton. I dropped my dose to 300mg 2x a day in advance of my upcoming psych appointment to see how it feel, so I'll give it a couple days and see if there's improvement. I don't think I really need to be on the highest dose, and I'm a little annoyed she didn't suggest this herself, as I had been telling her about it for a couple months.

@CentipedeKarma you're the only person I can think of here that also takes trileptal.... Have you had any cognitive issues with it?
 
I got that from tegretol which is the older version of that med. It made me very foggy in the head. I had to go off it because it gave me migraines

I used to think that Tegretol was used to help prevent migraines...if it causes migraines I might have to be careful as I'm considering reinstating that stuff because it just makes life so, so much easier to deal with. Stuff like sleeping can be taken for granted with Tegretol, intrusive thoughts were still there but they didn't stop me from sleeping.

The only problem with this drug is the fainting episodes I had, about 3 and each time I thought I was literally dying. Then I found out that Tegretol can affect sodium channels which can affect the heart, so doctors were very concerned when I mentioned this to them. Oh, and it can also damage your hearing but that would take a long time and from high doses in general from what has been said from online research (it especially affects mid and high tones, not sure about low tones).

Funny thing is the very thing that could affect my hearing (Tegretol) could in fact improve the myoclonus and help the stapes footplate from resonating too much which causes distortion, and also greatly reduce nerve pain in my right ear. I noticed that nerve irritation and distortion was less, especially on the right side, when I temporarily took it for about a week. Not surprising since it's used to treat trigeminal neuralgia which is a motherfucker of an affliction.
 
I used to think that Tegretol was used to help prevent migraines...if it causes migraines I might have to be careful as I'm considering reinstating that stuff because it just makes life so, so much easier to deal with. Stuff like sleeping can be taken for granted with Tegretol, intrusive thoughts were still there but they didn't stop me from sleeping.

The only problem with this drug is the fainting episodes I had, about 3 and each time I thought I was literally dying. Then I found out that Tegretol can affect sodium channels which can affect the heart, so doctors were very concerned when I mentioned this to them. Oh, and it can also damage your hearing but that would take a long time and from high doses in general from what has been said from online research (it especially affects mid and high tones, not sure about low tones).

Funny thing is the very thing that could affect my hearing (Tegretol) could in fact improve the myoclonus and help the stapes footplate from resonating too much which causes distortion, and also greatly reduce nerve pain in my right ear. I noticed that nerve irritation and distortion was less, especially on the right side, when I temporarily took it for about a week. Not surprising since it's used to treat trigeminal neuralgia which is a motherfucker of an affliction.

It is used to prevent migraines sometimes but it gave me the worst migraines i ever had. I had them for weeks after quitting the drug
 
I used to think that Tegretol was used to help prevent migraines...if it causes migraines I might have to be careful as I'm considering reinstating that stuff because it just makes life so, so much easier to deal with. Stuff like sleeping can be taken for granted with Tegretol, intrusive thoughts were still there but they didn't stop me from sleeping.

The only problem with this drug is the fainting episodes I had, about 3 and each time I thought I was literally dying. Then I found out that Tegretol can affect sodium channels which can affect the heart, so doctors were very concerned when I mentioned this to them. Oh, and it can also damage your hearing but that would take a long time and from high doses in general from what has been said from online research (it especially affects mid and high tones, not sure about low tones).

Funny thing is the very thing that could affect my hearing (Tegretol) could in fact improve the myoclonus and help the stapes footplate from resonating too much which causes distortion, and also greatly reduce nerve pain in my right ear. I noticed that nerve irritation and distortion was less, especially on the right side, when I temporarily took it for about a week. Not surprising since it's used to treat trigeminal neuralgia which is a motherfucker of an affliction.
Yeah my stepfather takes tegretol for his epilepsy. It does make me worry about him.
 
It is used to prevent migraines sometimes but it gave me the worst migraines i ever had. I had them for weeks after quitting the drug

I would say that's because you quit. The same thing happened to me when I quit, I had dizzy spells and headaches, and some episodes where my face would randomly get tics. It was horrible. Of course, this drug is notorious for causing withdrawal effects if you don't taper of it, and I was only taking 200mg twice per day. I admit coming off it was not pretty. Depressed too, because Tegretol has a mild serotonergic effect and not having that certainly made me feel worse. Sleeping was more difficult, but since I was also taking mirtazapine, the dosing effect the Tegretol had was slowly subsiding, allowing more of the mirtazapine to get into my system since Tegretol is a liver inducer and makes things get eliminated too quickly. Fine examples are benzos, painkillers, antiinflammatories, etc.

Yeah my stepfather takes tegretol for his epilepsy. It does make me worry about him.

My biggest fear is ending up being gone for a week or two before I'm found, where my insides are liquefied and I'm crawling with the hatchlings of household flying insects. That's the last thing I want is for someone to be traumatised by finding a body, especially one that has been gone for some time. I have no fear of my own death, but I am worried how it would affect someone else, and that is what scares me the most. It's why I would never want to use any really nasty methods of self-exit if I had to, but rather something gentle and non-traumatic.

I don't think I have much time left with the way this thing I'm dealing with is progressing.

It seems to be having a great time raping my sanity, causing untold stress and depression, and probably ruining whatever remains of my cardiovascular health I actually do have, which I'm sure I have some, but it's not like in my 20s. I'm in my 40s, my dad had bad angina attacks before they found blockages in his arteries, so this is something I need to fully understand, and that I cannot be careful enough...but even then, these things just keep happening.

So I guess I can provide you with a metaphor. Basically, in simple terms, I'm trapped on the top floor of a building with 30 floors where the fire has started on the 1st floor, and is slowly moving up. I'd have two choices here realistically, jump out that top floor, or wait for the fire to engulf me and kill me anyway. I could experience episode 13, off myself (jump out the building), or wait for further episodes and go completely insane, be inducted into a psychiatric ward and end up with a full blown schizophrenia diagnosis and do something trully hideous to myself (wait for the fire to burn me alive - a butt ugly outcome to be sure). I know I'm smart and the smart thing to do is to just pull the pin on episode 13 or whichever episode leaves me with serious hearing damage and most likely catastrophic tinnitus (which is what causes most Menieres patients to end their own lives).
 
Plausible. Guessing it's an Na+ VGIC inhibition, basically stopping a charge from making its way down the axon to fire at the end (axon terminal). So the vesicles are inhibited from releasing nt's into the collective area (synapse) of communication. So less glutamate is released, glutamate which is activating.

Don't know too much about it, never tried it, but there are a lot of bp/epilepsy meds that work this way.

None of them are perfect. I'd suggest lithium, but it can mess with short-term memory.

Is it more depression or mania that you experience? Lamotrigine is known for working on both, and a small incidence of side effects, and is also an Na+ inhibitor. They like to give depakote if mania is more the issue, somewhat of an atpyical, multi-facted GABAergic.

Nothing is perfect, I know you know. I guess work with the doc. I still get side effects from my meds, but overall they work.
No, no, no. Don't take Lithium it will make your hands shake so bad you'll be unable to use your computer. That's why I got off Lithium and went back to taking Depakote. Now my hands can type again.
 
I would say that's because you quit. The same thing happened to me when I quit, I had dizzy spells and headaches, and some episodes where my face would randomly get tics. It was horrible. Of course, this drug is notorious for causing withdrawal effects if you don't taper of it, and I was only taking 200mg twice per day. I admit coming off it was not pretty. Depressed too, because Tegretol has a mild serotonergic effect and not having that certainly made me feel worse. Sleeping was more difficult, but since I was also taking mirtazapine, the dosing effect the Tegretol had was slowly subsiding, allowing more of the mirtazapine to get into my system since Tegretol is a liver inducer and makes things get eliminated too quickly. Fine examples are benzos, painkillers, antiinflammatories, etc.

No i got the migraines while taking tegretol. They where absolutely horrible. I stopped taking the tegretol after a few days of getting the migraines but kept getting them for about 2 weeks. I only took it for about a month total i dont know if thats enough to develop any type of dependance with them. Fuck that shit anyway
 
@deficiT Do you get any episodes of dizziness or double vision when you take Oxcarbazepine ? That's usually a sign that the dose is too high.
 
No, no, no. Don't take Lithium it will make your hands shake so bad you'll be unable to use your computer. That's why I got off Lithium and went back to taking Depakote. Now my hands can type again.
People have different experiences. Lithium is an essential WHO medicine. Nothing works like it, the gold standard for bipolar disorder treatment.
 
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