Carbamazepine
Not the wonder drug I was hoping for. Headaches, tiredness, slight constipation and feeling sick are not the best side effects in the world, and as of yet, it’s not been helping my mood. My consultant has recommended I give it another 2 weeks to make sure that no benefits can be achieved from it, at which point I will probably move onto Lithium.
Life is really quite stressful at the moment, as I’m organising a house for myself and 3 friends to live in next year. Work is also very stressful for other reasons, and as a result I am currently signed off work with stress related problems. I’m feeling very down a lot of the time, so we’ll have to see what happens.
August 21st, 2005 at 11:02 am
Gosh - I am sorry to hear this. I hope you know how much we all appreciate what you’ve been doing in organising our accomodation for next year… you’ve done an absolutely amazing job, the house is amazing, and I’m sure we’re going to have a fantastic time.
If I can be of any more help with any organisey things, just give me the word.
I do hope things pick up soon… I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself at our housewarming thingey on Sunday.
Best wishes!
July 27th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I was prescribed Carbamazipine recently, for nerve pain associated with MS. Within a few days I started to notice that the skin on my hands was dry and appearing slightly flakey in places. I’d already genned up on the Carbamazipine as soon as my neurologist prescribed it. I noticed that there was a warning about adverse effects in some people from some ethnic origins. The warning I saw related to such an adverse side-effect, describing how the skin separates from its substrate and literally peels off. In some cases it just falls off. In only a short period the entire surface of the skin is raw and exposed as if it had been burned.
In my situation, the wrinkling of the skin on my hands, the dryness, and slightly translucent appearance of the skin with this flaking, was enough for me to heed the patient information warning which was “stop using immediately and inform your GP”.
This was a worrying problem. I was disappointed that I had to stop because I think it was really helping suppress terrible electrical spikes due to MS, that I experience through my legs.
Has anyone else noticed any strange skin changes when using this medicine? I have read that it is quite tough on the liver. I am not sure if that is true, but no doubt someone here will tell us.