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Mental Health Bipolar Disorder Mega Thread

FastestGrlInTown said:
Lamictal worked well for me, but gave me the dreaded rash...
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Did you try going up extremely slowly? I've never had the rash but I've heard from Doctors that starting at 12.5 mg and doubling the dose once a week until you get to 200 mg can solve the rash issue.
 
cashmunny said:
Did you try going up extremely slowly? I've never had the rash but I've heard from Doctors that starting at 12.5 mg and doubling the dose once a week until you get to 200 mg can solve the rash issue.
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When I went on lamictal they started me on 25mg once a day increasing by 25mg every 2 weeks until I hit 150mg then added 25mg each week until I hit 200mg.

I've heard of the slower starting 12.5mg titration but not doubling each week.
 
manicmama said:
When I went on lamictal they started me on 25mg once a day increasing by 25mg every 2 weeks until I hit 150mg then added 25mg each week until I hit 200mg.

I've heard of the slower starting 12.5mg titration but not doubling each week.
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I started on 25mg's and worked my way up to 200mg's over the course of a few months. I forget the exact dose escalation but it was slow. I found that it started helping my depression at about 100mg's a day and my mania and mixed states at 200mg's a day. Before i went on lamictal i used to get mixed states and rapid cycling alot but now i hardly ever get either :) . It has literally been a lifesaver for me.
 
paranoid android said:
I started on 25mg's and worked my way up to 200mg's over the course of a few months. I forget the exact dose escalation but it was slow. I found that it started helping my depression at about 100mg's a day and my mania and mixed states at 200mg's a day. Before i went on lamictal i used to get mixed states and rapid cycling alot but now i hardly ever get either :) . It has literally been a lifesaver for me.
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Just shows how different we all are, it gave me awful teary outbursts and increased anxiety, the addition of citalopram killed my sex drive and I went badly irritably mixed.
I took myself off, now regret cos I feel even worse - if quetiapine didn't sedate me so bad and pile the weight on I'd be happy but sadly it triggers my bullimia so I now await another pdoc and there possible solution. :(
 
An aresenal of meds LOL me too

Fluoxetine 40mg
Adderall 10mg (just started)
Lamictal 200 mg
Klonopin 1 mg
Trazadone as needed for sleep.

Lordy!
 
Well, off to my GP this afternoon in the hope he can prescribe something to knock this state on the head until my 'urgent' pdoc appt in 2 weeks time - if I have to wait til then I'm gonna end up in hospital. So absolutely sodding angry at the moment, paranoid or not I swear they WANT me hospitalised.
 
I am relieved - my GP has come up trumps, chlorpromazine, lamotrigine (not keen but willing to go back on now I have an AP that I believe works for me), mirtzapine (never had before but he's told me to take in a few days and see how I get on with it over a fortnight), and keep with clonazepam as needed.
I am just so happy to have had a medical professional listen when I tell them chlorpromazine WORKS for me, quetiapine, olanzapine, risperidone DON'T - fingers crossed I will be feeling more level and nice happy in a few days, I should finally sleep too :)
 
Last year, I was lucky if I was averaging 3 hours a night...Now, I just feel so week and muddled...I sleep all the time! Still, I'm not really trying to do anything to help it! I personally don't prefer to use meds....
 
Yep. Walked out on both my jobs, fantastically exhausted, same as BlueHues I was hardly sleeping last year (usually had extreme night sweats too). Saw my pdoc yesterday and was prescribed Latuda. This rounds out my cocktail of deplin, wellbutrin, and lamictal. I just need something to get me out of bed, I'm retreating into my head more and more, gotta abort this. Also, I have been grinding my teeth a lot so the headache attributes to my fog, surely.
 
manicmama said:
I am relieved - my GP has come up trumps, chlorpromazine, lamotrigine (not keen but willing to go back on now I have an AP that I believe works for me), mirtzapine (never had before but he's told me to take in a few days and see how I get on with it over a fortnight), and keep with clonazepam as needed.
I am just so happy to have had a medical professional listen when I tell them chlorpromazine WORKS for me, quetiapine, olanzapine, risperidone DON'T - fingers crossed I will be feeling more level and nice happy in a few days, I should finally sleep too :)
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Funny that you mention that chlorpromazine aka Thorazine aka Largactil works for you because it also works rather well for me too and with less side effects then risperidone or even seroquel. I had it prescribed to me for severe nausea and vomiting which it worked awesome for but i did use it a few times to treat acute mania and it worked pretty damn good. To me it doesn't really feel like a anti-psychotic at all or even feel unpleasant. It feels more like your average sedating anti-histamine to me then it does a anti-psychotic. This is probably because it has potent H1 antagonist and anti-cholinergic properties. So it does have strong anti-histaminic effects. Chlorpromazine is sort of the typical anti-psychotic version of seroquel as both are low potency anti-psychotics with strong anti-histaminic effects.

My doctor won't give me chlorpromazine because of the EPS side effects associated with it even though i believe it has no higher incidence of causing tardive dyskinesia then risperidone does which doctors prescribe all the time.
 
PA - My doctor won't give me chlorpromazine because of the EPS side effects associated with it even though i believe it has no higher incidence of causing tardive dyskinesia then risperidone does which doctors prescribe all the time. - EXACTLY why my old pdoc would not prescribe for me, which given they ALL have potentially serious side effects why not risk something known to work for the patient?!
 
weekend addiction said:
I'm seeing the doc in about 3 hours. Hoping for a medication adjustment.

Edit: Doc increased Seroquel to original 200 mg. I am now trying Celexa. We will see. Anybody ever take Celexa?
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I found it impossible to achieve orgasm and found it did naff all really for the depression - I never got on with seroquel though so if you're getting on with that hopefully you will have a better reaction to the celexa.
 
My doc has stopped mirtazipine, increased chlorpromazine to 50mg am, 50mg afternoon, 100mg at bed and began topiramate at 25mg bedtime to increase by 25mg weekly until at 100mg.

Has anyone tried topiramate and found it effective as a mood stabiliser? Doc is hoping to get me off chlorpromazine when manic symptoms have subsided - though I'm more than happy to stay on it long term to keep me level if needs be. I know there's a risk of movement disorder but there's a risk with every drug I've ever tried for bipolar of some kind.
 
^From what i have read of topiramate and what i have heard of people who where on it it's not exactly a great mood stabilizer or anything. It also has some nasty side effects such as making you dumb as a box of fucking rocks which is why it earned the nickname dumbomax, everything tastes like shit on it, people loose a fuckton of weight while on it and yeah just over all not a great drug. I would suggest trying lamotrigine, lithium or valproate before going on topiramate.
 
Already got the everything tastes of shit side effect :-\
I've tried all of the above but lithium affected my kidneys, lamotrigine did nothing for me and couldn't tolerate the weight gain with valproate - I thought he may try carbamazepine but he's gone with this instead, perhaps because its a side effect potential of weight loss he thinks ill be more compliant, I dunno, I'd prefer it to work as a mood stabiliser though, I dunno, thinking of paying for a private psych evaluation x
 
I tried carbamazepine for trigeminal neuralgia and i can honestly say it was the worst drug i have ever taken. It made me sick as a fucking dog and gave me crushing headaches. I had this for weeks after i quit the stuff. However some people do respond favorably to it so it might be worth a shot.
 
I've got a re evaluation in 2 weeks, nothing IMO can be as bad as going on lithium - I genuine thought I was dying, almost as bad as paracetamol od without exaggeration.
I'll see how I go with this crap, maybe it'll do for me, if I start to get a bit thick I'll just have to eff and blind at the quack and try and get my point across!
To be fair he seemed to have more about him than the last one, so I'll keep an open mind, but if it comes up bad I'll push for the carbamazepine and hope I have a better reaction.
Quetiapine/Seroquel works for you though? And you had good results with Olanzapine? Or am I being dumb already? Cos I didn't get on with them, chlorpromazine has given me the most relief and results from everything I've tried, but they wanna get me on just a mood stabiliser and have mirtazipine for depression relief and the chlorpromazine for relief of hypo/mania.
Would be easier to start fucking drinking again!
 
No, I was a total fruit loop when drinking, proper off my head - trying to find 'the right' combination of meds is just wearing me down a bit though, particularly when family and friends think cos you've got a diagnosis that's that, pop a pill and you'll be right as rain, what do you keep having episodes for? Why you moaning about side effects, you're not racing round like a raving looney no more, be grateful - cos quality of life don't matter when it's a mental illness that you have, does it?
Sorry - I know compared to some folk I'm lucky, I'm just a bit fucked off ATM and needed a rant.
How do you get on not drinking anyway? I do fine nowadays for the most part though I don't have much of a social life so I don't put myself in situations where I would be more tempted to have 'just one'
 
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