back on my feet- medical update

I did wind up seeing the specialist on Friday. This is a specialist (psychiatrist) in psychotropic meds; going on them, weaning from them. He's pretty famous, actually. First of all, he said that with Lamictal, it isn't really a wean as much as it is 'releasing that which was successfully under wraps'. It's a different chemical premise. Anyway, in short, he said that his advice is to stay on it, but on a low dose. Yes, ideally, it'd be great to be off as many medicines as possible. But we see that Lamictal is one medicine that my system needs, for better or for worse. His opinion is that the slight possibility that it may be contraindicated with the Lyrica is a very small chance to take while benefiting from it's main purpose, mood stabilizer.

As my doctor said a long time ago, while I was going through the worst stage of the PTSD, when I asked him why is this happening to my brain, "when a person comes back from having one foot in the Other World, we don't really know what goes on with brain chemistry" [or something like that].

Another reason to go back to the Lamictal (low dose) is that it actually was helping pain as well. How do I know that? I hurt more for the past two weeks. I hurt a lot more.
This specialist I saw on Friday also told me that it helps with pain. It is a nervous system suppressor, of course it could help control pain.

I am not actually 100% convinced of that last one; that the Lamictal helps control my pain. I don't plan to go back on a high dose (again, the contraindication problem with Lyrica); he suggested to try to stay on 25, so I don't know if I'll see it actually help pain, if it was.

The situation now is that I am back on 25mg. Lamictal a day. It is what it is.

I feel stable again, thank Gd!!!! 

Sleeping is off again, though. It'll take some time to get that back on track.

Tomorrow (Monday) I will get the results of the biopsy taken from Gapey six weeks ago (that post is here). The rash is still blazing away and bothering me/itching/hurting all the time. I really really hope they have discovered the nature of it and have an easy treatment to get rid of it.

Interestingly enough, there is such a syndrome as "Lamictal Rash". Robert thinks that is what I have on Gapey. Could be right...? We'll see what the lab reports say tomorrow. If it is that, will it never go away as long as I am on the Lamictal? Oy.

Tuesday going for a follow-up with Prof. Meller in Tel Aviv. I'm going to tell him that the Fentanyl patches help lots with the pain from the thigh joint disease. Currently I am having more pain with walking and getting up from chairs (hurts a lot!), maybe as a result of less Lamictal, we may never know.

My next MRI is scheduled for December, so only then we can know if there are any changes in the joint.