The inmates are running the asylum.

I posted on crazymeds asking if anyone had any experience going off trileptal. Schedules, etc, and was surprised to find that I was given insane answers.

One of them described how to find a doctor, as if the phone book was really too complicated.

This asshole, Dymphas, also stated:

If you are living in a place that doesn’t even have an American Consulate, then you’ve got bigger problems than Trileptal.

Look at that!  That moderator, Dymphas, is an idiot!

So this has been a great lesson, don’t bother trying to ask specific questions at crazymeds, you will receive random advice from jingoist people who probably wear tinfoil hats.

What was I thinking?

Proposed Schedule (Still (52 days of Trileptal left))

This is from crazymeds.us.

How to Stop Taking Trileptal: Your doctor should be recommending that you reduce your dosage by 150-300mg a day every three days, based on the 2 and 9 hour half-lives, if not more slowly than that.

Ok, so I need to figure out when I need to actually stop, which day, and then extrapolate that out. This is precisely when I could use a little medical advice. So actually, I probably have more time that 52 day left. I have 52 600mg pills.

I am taking 600 mg / 1 X per day.

Well here is the proposal:

150 * 5 (days) = 750
300 * 5 = 1500
450 * 5 = 2250
total for those 15 days = 4500 mg

4500 / 600 = 7.5

So I can add 7.5 days to 52… right?

59.5 days remaining of medication.

(Not sure about what to do with that half a day, or how to split the pill into quarters. It’s kinda a funny shape.)

Back on it. (52 days of Trileptal left)

I just took a dose again. I had been taking Tripletpal for a couple of years and just tried to quit on my own. I am nowhere near my psychiatrist so I tried to … well, just stop.

This hasn’t worked out very well.

I think, first of all, I should have done some research, instead of just waking up one day, looking at the medicine and saying “no thanks”. In retrospect, had I googled “Trileptal withdrawl” I would have seen that some funky shit was going to happen.

My ankles swelled up, and my face went numb. And I just felt … weird. Kind of like I had the flu.

I was super thirsty, as well.

These are all, I learned… bad.

Apparently they are the signs of hyponatremia — a lowering of blood sodium that occurs in about 3 people per 100 treated.   I”m not sure how bad that is, but I know that I didn’ like it.

I also felt spacey (not Kevin Spacey) and a bit confused.

A public appeal.

I have 52 days left of the medicine and will try to figure out some kind of calculator so that I can taper slowly but not too slowly.Understand that I am not a doctor, and have no medical training. I am not advocating this, nor am I opposed to receiving some counsel from someone who knows a bit about this stuff. I don’t really want to withdraw from Trileptal based upon information that I’ve gleaned from Wikipedia.

If there are any doctors that could help me, that would be great.

I’ve just moved from England to Brazil and don’t have a doctor here.

Oh and don’t let lawsuits scare you away, I’m not going to sue anyone, you will be anonymous.