Q:  Risks With Tegretol?

My husbands doctor is changing his meds. (AGAIN) to tegretol.  This drug scares me.  Should it?  When he was on Depacote it caused rapid heartbeat. He is also on Celexa and was on Wellbutrin and Nuerontin until the Tegretol was prescribed.  Blood disorders, thyroid problems, immune system being affected, that is what i have read could happen!  I am scared!  Also if he takes this drug and some of these side effects happen, will the side effects go away if he stops the drug use?

Thanks for any help!

Dear Ms. M' -- 
Nope, this sounds like the right direction based on that list of meds.  There are some risks with Tegretol but they can be managed.  Help the doctor remember to do blood tests frequently until 6 months (not clear how often to do them after that as the risk goes so far down for the blood problems); like monthly, or some doc's go even more frequent at least at first.  And yes in almost all cases if the blood counts start going down, and the medication is stopped, the counts quickly go back up (surprisingly quickly: two of my patients got pretty low, fortunately caught on the blood tests before it got too bad, but wow they were okay very quickly).  

Dr. Phelps