increased risks of suicide
increased risks of hyponatremia and SIADH
risk of seizures, if the person stops taking the drug abruptly
risks to the fetus in women who are pregnant, specifically congenital malformations like spina bifida, and developmental disorders.Common adverse effects may include drowsiness, dizziness, headaches and migraines, motor coordination impairment, nausea, vomiting, and/or constipation. Alcohol use while taking carbamazepine may lead to enhanced depression of the central nervous system. Less common side effects may include increased risk of seizures in people with mixed seizure disorders, abnormal heart rhythms, blurry or double vision. Also, rare case reports of an auditory side effect have been made, whereby patients perceive sounds about a semitone lower than previously; this unusual side effect is usually not noticed by most people, and disappears after the person stops taking carbamazepine. Pharmacogenetics
Serious skin reactions such as Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) or toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) due to carbamazepine therapy are more common in people with a particular human leukocyte antigen gene-variant (allele), HLA-B*1502. Odds ratios for the development of SJS or TEN in people who carry the allele can be in the double, triple or even quadruple digits, depending on the population studied. HLA-B*1502 occurs almost exclusively in people with ancestry across broad areas of Asia, but has a very low or absent frequency in European, Japanese, Korean and African populations. However, the HLA-A*31:01 allele has been shown to be a strong predictor of both mild and severe adverse reactions, such as the DRESS form of severe cutaneous reactions, to carbamazepine among Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Europeans.
Carbamazepine (CBZ), sold under the trade name Tegretol among others, is an anticonvulsant medication used primarily in the treatment of epilepsy and neuropathic pain. It is used as an adjunctive treatment in schizophrenia along with other medications and as a second-line agent in bipolar disorder. Carbamazepine appears to work as well as phenytoin and valproate for focal and generalized seizures. It is not effective for absence or myoclonic seizures.Carbamazepine was discovered in 1953 by Swiss chemist Walter Schindler. It was first marketed in 1962. It is available as a generic medication. It is on the World Health Organizations List of Essential Medicines. In 2018, it was the 204th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 2 million prescriptions. The newer but structurally related drugs, Oxcarbazepine and eslicarbazepine acetate, both show similar interactions, adverse events, and mechanism of action profiles. Medical uses
Carbamazepine is typically used for the treatment of seizure disorders and neuropathic pain. It is used off-label as a second-line treatment for bipolar disorder and in combination with an antipsychotic in some cases of schizophrenia when treatment with a conventional antipsychotic alone has failed. However, evidence does not support this usage. It is not effective for absence seizures or myoclonic seizures.