Posted by cpallen79 on July 31, 2004, at 21:43:26
Hi All,
I've been lookingup info on Bipolar disorder... Though my PDOC didn't think I had it... I'm starting to wonder. If anything I fit into a II category or somewhere along the spectrum... Here's why...
Ever since I was a small child I have suffered from night terrors... where I would wake up disoriented and overstimulated. I remember these clearly. I would cry and be in an absolute panic for nearly a half an hour. I was scared of everything and felt overstimualted by everything from nopsies to objects (wierd I know)
at about the age of 9 or so I experienced that feeling for about a week. I was overstimulated, unhappy, and felt like could crawl out of my skin. Eventually that went away. Also as a child, I was incredibly moody (and remain so to this day- I overreact and and am crushed over jsut abotu anything) Ok, back to the anxiety/agitation, these agitated episodes have increased in intensity and length as I've gotten older. For example, when I was about 17, I went into an agitated depression and felt that same horrid feeling... overstimulated, hyperaroused, and frightened... noise bothered me... EVERYTHING bothered me. They tried to put me on Prozac and I absolutely flipped out and became panic stricken. They tried Paxil.... same thing. It took me months to get over that and I was very very depressed before coming out of it. I took xanax but it didn't help a whole lot, calmed me a wee bit. Needless to say things calmed down eventually, and 2 years later I tried Paxil again for OCD and this time I was ok.... went off that and developed the depression where you just want to sleep all day, feel down. Went on Wellbutrin, stayed on it for 4 months... it worked well but sometimes gave me anxiety attacks. Wierd thing I noticed about Wellbutrin is that it tended to make me hypomanic... wcwn on just 100 to 150 mgs a day I was constantly driven, was constantly hypersexual, and needed only a few hours of sleep at times. Same type of depression returned after I went off it (lethargy, sleeping all the time, a bit of anxiety)... went back on it for about a year before switching to Effexor for OCD. Went off Effexor and went into a terrible agitated depression, this was the worst so far, and even though it's been 7 months and I'm medicated with an SSRI, I still feel the effects of it (over excited, over stimulated,agitated, anxiety). Mornings were always so bad, so intense that I thought I was going to crawl right out of my skin with agitation and panic. I would walk around the block for hours on end and absolutely could not relax. Thank god for SSRIS have helped eliminate some of that in this period.
Now I know none of us are docs on here, but I really think that I have a mild form of BP II and was wondering if any of you have any insight to offer. I think I have experienced mixed states during these periods of agitated depression, so to speak. My PDOC suggested Lamictal last session and I told her I'd think about it, though I'm nto too crazy aboutLamictal and would prefer something else. What are your thoughts on this? Any insight?
poster:cpallen79
thread:372770
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040730/msgs/372770.html