So I went to the meds doc yesterday and rattled off a list of side effects – balance, coordination, nausea, pimples all over my head. “I have no problem about these, after the problems with Lexapro,” I told him. Then I flippantly tossed out another “side effect” almost as a joke – difficulty typing and writing longhand. But he countered, “No, others have reported that too.”
I am a touch typist – I am at the computer a lot. I write longhand quickly. Fine motor control. But in the last few weeks on Lamictal, it seems like I have to keep correcting my typing. I miss letters or reverse letters. Or mes sup the spacin gbetween lettesr.
It is annoying because it screws up my train of thought to go back and correct them. The artist and creator in me wants to keep typing to capture the thought, and the engineer cannot STAND to see those little red squiggly lines underneath misspelled words, and makes us go back and correct them.
And it is happening a LOT MORE lately.
I was writing out a check to the meds doc and I left letters out of his name and also in spelling out the amount of the fee. I said, “Here’s another interesting side effect – I am missing letters when I write and it just feels funny to write. Holding the pen feels strange. But I am sure it is unrelated to anything.”
“No,” he told me. “Others have reported the same thing to me.”
??? You are kidding me! A side effect is missing letters while writing and typing? Doesn’t that sound bizarre!?!
I mentioned this in an email to my mom. She replied, “And you know something, I have noted that your e-mails are a bit sloppier – a letter missing once in a while. Very interesting. I wondered about it because you are usually so precise. ”
But do you remember that “Power of the Human Brain” thing? It shouldn’t matter if I do that because you will still be able to read my posts. (I looked for a legitimate reference for this but there appears to be none other than random blogs like this one. But it is rather ubiquitous.)
if yuo can raed tihs, you hvae a sgtrane mnid, too.
Can you raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.
But I digress. (Or, “But I digest” as my best friend says…)
So this is all the push I needed to go trolling on the internet for information about this mysteriously strange side effect. Imagine my surprise when I saw it reported elsewhere!
References for this strange side effect
I found nothing on “official” websites. However, several forums writers at askpatient.com and copingwithepilepsy.com reported the same thing.
“I have experienced trouble typing, finding the right words and stumbling over my words in conversation…and lots of trouble with handwriting–like leaving out letters, scrambled letters, and basically trouble writing at all.”
“I feel like the “Village Idiot,” experiencing problems with writing, reading and speaking. … letters become transposed or a letter disappears. When I read, I don’t see a word correctly and completely misinterpret the meaning of the sentence. In speaking, I grasp for words and choose the wrong ones.”
“Trouble when typing, mixing up the letters, mixing up words when talking.”
“Definite problems with inversion of numbers and letters. My hands always seem to be one key over to far!”
“Spelling and typing are harder, I mix up letters and whatnot.”
“I’m normally a fast typist, but now I constantly reach for wrong letters. It’s as if my brain can’t control where my fingers are going on the keyboard….can’t seem to get the right word out my memory bank.”
“This isn’t dyslexia; I’m not transposing letters, but leaving letters out, or having trouble spelling.”
“Difficulty in completing letters in words when writing, many typos, difficulty in finding correct words to say to complete sentences.”
Now, this particular side effect may be due to a broader category of side effects of lack of coordination, tremor, and clumsiness.
“Tremor(shaking) and painful and tense feeling in my right hand, which makes certain things such as writing and holding a glass difficult & uncomfortable, due to shaking of hand.”
Same side effect with other drugs
During my search, I also found other drugs with the same crappy handwriting and typing side effects. One is Topamax which is prescribed for migraines.
“(!!!)Wow 18 hours later and I can still hardly type! Each word comes out wrong letters all jumbled – it’s a challenge typing dyslexic!”
Because the action of Topamax is unknown but proposed to calm excitable nerve cells, it may be similar to Lamictal which modulates sodium channels to modulate nerve cell communications (see post Lamictal – a drug for DID?)
Interestingly, researchers have explored changes in handwriting with different psychotropic drugs to detect small changes in motor control that are caused by side effects of the drug: Quantitative measurement of handwriting in the assessment of drug-induced parkinsonism.
So all of this might be related. On another note – several of the forum writers above mention the concept of dyslexia. Since dyslexia is thought to be caused by language centers in the brain and problems with left-right brain communication, could a drug like Lamictal that affects neural condition simulate such a condition?
Hey, it’s a REALLY big stretch, but who knows. After all, this drug causes me to reverse letters and screw up words!
Humorous Closing
Of course when I search the internet, I usually find something interesting but unrelated. When I used the search term, “Lamictal side effects handwriting”, I was amused to see references to doctors and their illegible handwriting in sound-alike drug names (Lamictal vs Lamisil lamivudine, Ludiomil labetalol, and Lomotil). Of course the topic of the post was NOT amusing, namely, deaths caused by dispensing the wrong drug. One hospital even offered a handwriting course targeted to doctors identified by nurses as those with the worse handwriting.
PS
Yes, this post was difficult to write. I am sure it took longer than normal. And I had 7 typos in this paragraph. Gak.
Emily First Girl: ...........Camigwen ............Multiplicity 
At one of our local pubs that does a really yummy lunch, some of their disposable placemats had pretty much the same thing as your muddled up writing example. (others had some funny jokes etc). It started off something like “No, you hnvsa’t been Dkinring taht mcuh.”
Or something like that anyway. They didn’t say only 55 % could read it. They just said anyone could.
🙂