Posted by cache-monkey on March 16, 2006, at 20:15:13
Hey all,
Been a while since I've posted. I'm not doing so well right now. I'm pretty sure that I'm BPII with mixed states/dysphoria predominant and periodic depression. Possibly also ultra rapid-cycling, although that's hard to seperate out from a mixed state for me. I've recently been going off of Lithium because it irritates my urinary system and makes my kidneys hurt. Even at ~50 mg/day.
Problem is that when I do go off of it, I find myself sliding into a mixed state. On Lithium, I feel a little stabilized, provided I don't raise the dose too high, in which case I get increased anxiety. So I feel like with the Lithium I'm torn between my mental and physical health.
Oh, and I've had failed trials of the following:
1) Depakote - increased depression, fractured sleep and cognitive blunting throughout at 6 week trial
2) The atypical antipsychotics - akathisia from Zyprexa and Geodon; severe dry mouth and some agitation from Seroqual
3) Trileptal - severe cognitive dysfunction during 10 day trial
4) Lamictal - increased agitation, muscle aches, sexual dysfunction at 25 mg, panic attack at 50 mg (conservative titration, but a very stressful period of my life...) -- actually I'm going to start another thread about retrialing...My pdoc has started me on Neurontin, but I'm wary. Any thoughts on another mood stabilizer? More specifically, is there a mood-stabilizer that is considered "similar" to (low-dose) Lithium in its actions?
Also, out of the following meds, is there one that might be considered better for mixed-states and ultra-rapid cycling? {Neurontin, Tegretol, Topomax, Keppra, Zonegran, verapamil, Gabitril}
Thanks for any input you might have!
Best,
cache-monkey
poster:cache-monkey
thread:621113
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060315/msgs/621113.html