100mg to 150mg sent me to the ER

Earlier this year I started this, slow titration from 25mg, to 50mg, then to 100mg - waiting about 2-3 weeks in-between. When I hit 100mg earlier this year, I swore it was making nauseous and throw up. But so much was going on, that I wasn't 100%, but suspected it. I stopped taking it. I had retitrate again. We got to 50mg - before months later, I stopped taking it because my mania told me I didn't need it. 🙎‍♀️ So this last 2 months we gradually made it back to 100mg - I agreed to raise it to 150mg last Tuesday because my bipolar was acting up again.

And within a day, I started feeling lightly dizzy and nauseous, then the next day the dizziness was sort of worse so I sought out dramamine. The next day after the dizziness got so bad it felt like I was unsteady and nauseous, but some dramamine and Zofran made me feel better, the next day was EVEN worse. I was so dizzy it felt like I was being pushed down. When I walked I felt unsteady and clumsy. All I wanted to do was throw up. Driving home was difficult. When I got home I could barely walk.

I suspected it was the lamotrigine increase.

I called a nurseline to see what to do, but was advised if I could barely walk to go to the ER. I had to take an ambulance since I live alone - the poor nurse had to listen to me dry heave my address to her.

The ER was apprehensive about it being the medicine, but still looked at my lamotrigine levels. They came back fine - all my labs were fine. However, this clumsy/dizziness just wouldn't go away. I was told if it didn't, they'd need to hospitalize me.

They tried to treat it like a "migraine" - they gave me a shot of droperidol through IV. I HATED it immediately - I was suddenly uncomfortable in my own body, wanted to crawl right out of my skin. It just felt like a dog-pile of how awful I was already feeling. I didn't understand what was going on, so they offered my benadryl. I declined because I didn't want more medicine in my body.

They gave me an Ativan to chill me out. We concluded that I was probably going to feel okay if I just got some sleep, as they finally accepted it was my lamotrigine increase, having an adverse reaction.

When I got home later, after some sleep, I woke up with the worse akathisia from the droperidol. That lasted for 2 days and needing to sedate myself to sleep or even relax. Explains why I wanted to crawl out of my skin when receiving it.

I got a hold of my psychiatrist via message and he agreed it was my lamotrigine that caused me to be so dizzy, nauseous, and clumsy/unsteady. (I see him in person tomorrow).

Now...I've cold turkeyed off it...I'm scared. This is not the first medicine that I've had reactions to. This is the worst, since it brought me to the ER.

I've been spending the whole night tonight all scared I'm gonna pass out or am having those symptoms without even taking the medince right now. I'm just so exhausted.

Anyone else have an adverse reaction for a small dose increase? Did you keep taking it (split it up from AM/PM)? Lower the dose back down? Stop it completely? Did your reaction that was like mine need medical attention? How did they treat you? (I ask, because the way they treated mine seems weird).