Posted by med_empowered on March 9, 2005, at 20:41:38
In reply to Re: Relapse or Poop Out -- Soft Bipolar Disorder » CK1, posted by Phillipa on March 9, 2005, at 20:06:56
Hey! As Bipolar I or NOS (depending on which shrink you ask) I found this very interesting. However, I also wanted to suggest that maybe there's another way to handle this...instead of expanding the "bipolar spectrum" to include those with prozac poop-out, perhaps psychiatrists should simply recognize that mood-stabilizers can be very beneficial to people who don't meet the criteria for Bi-polar I/II or cyclothymic disorder. I have friends with treatment-resistant depression who responded amazingly well (and, thankfully, QUICKLY) to the addition of Lamictal and Lithium to their regimines...suddenly anti-depressants that had never worked did work reasonably well, and their emotions and their lives were more balanced. These 2 people did not meet any criteria for bipolar, but still responded well to mood-stabilizers. In addition, some researchers have found that mood-stabilizers can be enormously beneficial to schizophrenics, even those (or esepcially those) labelled "treatment resistant." Here, we're dealing with hardcore, chronic schizophrenia that in the past would have been dealt with by using higher and higher doses of anti-psychotics, all in the hope that maybe something would "click" at some point. Now it seems that it may be possible to treat some cases of schizophrenia with the low-end doses of anti-psychotics and additional treatment with lithium, depakote, and/or lamictal (these are the 3 I've read about being used in schizophrenia; I imagine other mood-stabilizers could be used as well). Then of course there are people with incredible levels of anxiety that are helped by off-label mood-stabilizers...here, people who in the past might either be given huge amounts of benzos that could interfere with their quality of life, OR not given enough benzos by docs afraid of "addiction" are being treated with medication that is generally safe, reasonably well-tolerated, and effective in the long haul. Benzos, of course, could still be used, but they can be used at lower doses so there are fewer side-effects. Anyway, I think it's sad that psychiatrists seem to be neglecting potential uses for mood-stabilizers while at the same time atypical anti-psychotics are being RX'd for all kinds of conditions.
poster:med_empowered
thread:468932
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050308/msgs/468968.html