My medications.

In addition to having to wean myself off of caffeine (which is going to be a tough road by itself), I'm also going to have to wean myself off of my current medications.

My current list of medications that I take daily:

• 100mg of Lamotrigine (generic version of Lamictal)
• 1mg of folic acid
• 10mg of Abilify
• 1 prenatal vitamin
• 1 packet of Cholestyramine powder (generic version of Questran)

With the exception of the prenatal vitamin, I will have to stop taking all of those before I get pregnant. (Right now I'm taking more than is recommended in folic acid to combat any potential birth defects the Lamotrigine and Abilify are known for causing. Once I am off those, I can drop back down to the recommended dosage that can be found in prenatal vitamins.)

The Lamotrigine and Abilify (for my Bipolar II Disorder) are going to be the tricky ones to come off of. A lot of places that I've researched online speak of how big of a pain the withdrawal is from those two medicines.

When I first started taking them, the dosage was very small... and was slowly increased to where it's at right now... which, thankfully, aren't very high dosages at all. So in order to come off of them, I have to reverse the order... by slowly decreasing my amount taken over the next two months.

Today I drop down to 50mg from 100mg of Lamotrigine... and down to 5mg from 10mg of Abilify. Then, after a month of doing that, I cut the dosage in half again... ride that out for another month before completely removing it from my system. Following this schedule, I'll have all the medicines out of my system by the first of September.

(As far as the Cholestyramine is concerned, I've not read anywhere that this medication is the "weaning type." I can just stop taking this one cold turkey without any negative side effects. So I can keep taking this for the next two months for my stomach troubles related from having my gallbladder removed in March of 2005.)

So that's my plan of action for now. I'm really hoping and praying that it's an easy withdrawal... and that I don't have any of the really bad side effects I've read about. (Most people complain of severe irritability... headaches... nausea... depression...) However, I would rather experience those bad effects than potentially harm my baby.

If anyone has any advice or experience in coming off of these medications, please feel free to comment. I'd love to hear from you!