My middle daughter is almost 10 years old and in 4th grade. She has been on Lamictal for Absence Seizures since she was in kindergarten. She was put on it because she also has migraines and one of its original uses was for migraine sufferers. In people who have certain behaviors due to their Autism, it's a good fit because it can help control the behaviors without affecting the personality or core of the person taking the medication.
She hasn't had any negative side effects at all. Her appetite is poor but it was already poor before the medication due to her sensory issues and digestive issues. It actually helped her appetite even though it still stinks. She doesn't have any tiredness issues and in fact even though she takes it before bed time she still requires a small dose of melatonin at night to fall asleep.
That all said, I do keep a close eye on how well the medication is working. If she's overtired, her blood sugar is low, she gets over-stimulated, overly upset, is around strobe lighting, has a growth spurt, then she's more likely to have clusters of seizures. So if she has more than a few in between our every-1-to-3 months appointments and had a significant enough growth spurt, she would need a boost in dosage. The preference, of course, is to maintain her on as low of a dose as possible.
We have her on the Lamictal XR, which we only have to give her once a day. They don't make it in generic form. That means our pediatric neurologist has to write on the prescription every time that the name brand and XR is medically necessary.
The only other thing that would be a red flag to look out for is if there's a sudden red rash that crops up for no apparent reason, especially on the trunk area. So far, in 4/5 years, nothing, or we would have to take her off immediately instead of titrating down.
So all that to say that we've had a very good experience with it.
