Lamictal and hard core

I have been on Lamictal for approximately 7 years. The product initially seemed to work a bit on controlling my seizure activity, and did provide a bit more confidence in social situations. At this point I was taking 400mg per day, and had little side effects other than the absent mindedness, and occasional problems with vertigo.
Briefly, about a year ago, I began having an increasing number of partial and general seizures, and was brought up to a dosage of 700mg per day. It was at this point that I began noticing what could only be called "hard-core" side effects. These included days where I was just totally confused, paranoid, suicidal, having an unrelenting feeling of not being able to breath, feeling bloated in my abdomen, and regularly being struck with a very irregular, very scary, rapid heart beat.
At this point, I am taking 600mg per day, and am still having most of these side-effects, but in decreased frequency. My neurologist never mentioned any of these possible symptoms, and doesn't seem overly concerned about any of the problems that I have mentioned in the past. With this in mind, it is somewhat relieving to see that there are others out there who are noticing similar effects.
If anyone can explain the difficulty breathing thing a bit more, it might help me wrap my brain (no pun intended) around this whole mess. I'm not sure if it's related to a decrease in blood pressure - I've been monitoring mine and haven't seen any irregularities. Or if it's related to a decrease in the amount of oxygen in the circulatory system due to the drug itself, or as a side-effect of the shallow breathing I have read about in other posts here.

Hello! I've been taking Lamictal for about 6 years now. I'm diagnosed as BP II and have the most difficulty with depression. I currently take 500 mg-- 400 mg at night and 100 mg in the morning. I have to say that Lamictal has been very good to me for the most part. As long as I don't put myself into extremely stressful positions-- such as my last job-- I do quite well. I also take a combination of supplements with Lamictal which seem to give the extra push that I needed to completely get out of my last depression. I take 1000 mg EPA (fish oil), B-100 Complex, Folic Acid, Cal-Mag, multivitamin (high quality, organic), Vitamin D (at least 1000 mg) and a few others.

I notice that when I take it at night if I don't go to sleep right away, my mouth and tongue will tingle. Sometimes when I take it in the morning, I feel foggy and dizzy and sometimes get vertigo. Every now and then the side effects seem to get worse, which I am not sure about. I started searching on the internet because I've been noticing that the "tip of the tongue" problem has been occurring more and more often. I often cannot think of the word I want, simple things even. As others have mentioned, I also have difficulty with memory. I am still very successful, currently pursuing a 2nd Master's Degree, but have noticed that achieving the same level of quality of work takes a lot more effort than during my previous degrees.

I do have some periods of anger/irritability and have recently been sleeping a lot, though it probably has a lot more to do with the time of year-- winter with less light-- than anything else.

I am particularly worried about my memory loss and inability to sound "well-spoken" in a setting which demands that of me. It is frustrating! I don't want to do any lasting harm on my brain. After increasing to 500 mg from 400 mg, I have noticed more of these brain issues, but I'm also doing so much better mood wise!

I have been prescribed Lamictal for seizures, and am currently taking 400mg daily, with my 300mg of Dilantin. Had horrible side effects this weekend-nightmares, exhausted, worsening depression, crying jags, difficulty swallowing. Has anyone else experienced mood changes for the worse while on this drug?