Posted by Ritch on April 2, 2002, at 21:41:22
In reply to Re: bipolar NOS? » Ritch, posted by JohnX2 on April 2, 2002, at 9:15:32
>
> Hi Mitch,
>
> What is bipolar-NOS?
>
> Have you ever had clear cut non med induced euphoric like manic episodes (feelings of utopia, grandiouse ideas, mega-self esteem, insane business plans/ideas, pressured speech, spending sprees, bad investments) ?
>
> JohnHi John,
"NOS" Not otherwise specified. A neuro called me an "atypical" bipolar. He also thought I was having frontal lobe seizures based on my response to SSRI's and my family history of nocturnal epilepsy (and some type of temporal lobe probs, too). I also have a couple of "flat spots" on my EEG "map" that got done-that were considered possible head injuries. The bottomline is that all the pdocs I have seen over the last several years have been wondering some about the dx I got pinned with in 1978. The only thing that really stands out like a sore thumb is the seasonal recurrent depressions I have had consistently as far back as I can remember(even as a kid). I burn about 25% of the year being clinically depressed, and about another 25% being dysthymic (the grey areas on either "side" of my depressions). They are predictable down to a week or two give or take year after year after year. Thus far the only thing that has clearly "worked" to knock them out is a psychostimulant. *I* still consider my dx to include bipolarII amongst others things, but if "296.2" is what my pdoc thinks it is-then that is it I guess. Yes, I do get med-induced hypomania-no doubt about it. But, I have had one comment by one pdoc in about five years like "I see you are a little hypo today". SSRI's(*any* dose-*any* SSRI) and high-dose TCA set off the hypomanias the worst. SSRi's setoff what I call "laugh attacks". I took just 25mg of Luvox one time and after a few hours I was thinking of something funny and couldn't stop laughing-all my facial muscles "froze up" and I turned bright red, and then my heart started racing and I felt like I was having a panic attack. I quit my Celexa about two weeks ago and my mood flattened out considerably. But, I felt humorless, I wanted to get *high*. So, I took a couple of milligrams Sunday and BANG! back to my "old" silly self again. It shortened my sleep by two hours that night, one hour last night, and I can still feel the Celexa right now. I am going to wait 7 days exactly before I take any more (and chart everything closely), and then I am going to cut it down to about 1.25 mg (once a week?). The stuff acts almost like pot to me, I swear! I used to smoke grass as a teen and that is when the hypomanias started. I know some docs consider med-induced hypomania indicative of bipolar and that's OK. It's just a label. Probably, if you pull me off all antidepressants I wouldn't get hypomania. Interestingly, pstims don't trigger cycling. When I tried Adderall+Neurontin before and stopped all AD's my cycling dissapeared. Interestingly, there is a form of epilepsy called gelastic epilepsy that can involve conscious spells of laughter, and they treat it with .. dexedrine.
Mitch
poster:Ritch
thread:100774
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020402/msgs/101584.html