Posted by avid abulia on July 30, 2003, at 14:45:03
In reply to Re: cognitive decline impeding life, posted by foucault on July 30, 2003, at 13:29:52
Hey there,
I can totally sympathize with your problem... though for me, it resolved upon discontinuing any meds with sedating properties, along with adding 3 tbsp of lecithin granules to my breakfast (usually oatmeal or rice or some such, or a soy protein plus fruits and veggies shake) plus a vitamin-B 100mg complex with breakfast and extra folic acid and vitamin B12 throughout the day.
Also, after waiting through the period of time it takes for the sedating effects of Keppra to wear off, it seems to have increased my cognitive abilities (a few studies support the idea that this is fairly common, at least in studies with animals and human epileptics, and Keppra is related to nootropic drugs like piracetam). Also, have you tried Vivactil? I just started taking it, when I was at 10mg qhs in the morning, it significantly enhanced my abilities to concentrate, but now I've gone up to 20mg for the past 3 days and am finding a paradoxical effect so I am going to drop back to 10mg tomorrow. But, it has some studies backing it's use as a more effective stimulant in cases of brain injury for patients who do not respond to, or cannot tolerate, dopaminergics like amphetamine/amphetamine analogs, or bromocriptine. It is the TCA with the least anti-cholinergic and anti-histamine effects. Here is a link to a study:
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/protriptyline.htm
Also, it may be worth noting, that if you go to sign yourself up (whether falsely or not, they don't check these things) to Medscape, and select as your specialty psychiatry and put in bipolar disorder as at least one of your areas of special interest, you will find that there is an article currently on it about cognitive decline in bipolar disorder... and it says that frequently, the patients with the most subjective impairment have the least objective impairment, and vice-versa... so it may be at least *partially* a self-esteem issue as noted above. Also, as noted above, Aricept has at least one study (that I have seen, anyway) backing its efficacy in treating medication-induced cognitive dysfunction, but I've never tried it.
Anyways, best of luck to ya!
~AA
poster:avid abulia
thread:246353
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030728/msgs/246815.html