Posted by dewdropinn on July 30, 2007, at 12:25:10
In reply to Any bipolars do well on AD alone for a long time?, posted by linkadge on July 27, 2007, at 15:18:54
My experience mirrors yours -- 3 years of glorious remission on Zoloft, followed by Zoloft pooping out on me, followed by a drug quest that encompassed almost every legally obtainable psycho-active substance known to man.
You may already be away of the "kindling" theory, but if not, here's the nickle tour -- if left untreated, epilepsy grows worse over time, with seizures becoming more frequent and severe -- a lot of researchers think the same thing is at work with bipolar -- cycling if left untreated becomes increasingly severe, eventually bringing very obvious bipolar symptoms to the fore. SSRIs are among the worse drugs for bipolars -- so it goes to folllow that SSRIs kick this whole process into hyper-drive. It makes you wonder whether or not the emergence of wide-spread bipolarity is associated with the wide-spread administration of SSRIs.
Mood stablizers are a tricky bunch. They all are capable of making you feel miserable, and they can all have nasty start-up side effects -- some can be downright vicious like depakote and lithium, although many are able to take both without serious problems. So, your response isn't at all abnormal, and it doesn't mean that mood stabilizers aren't the ticket to your recovery.
Anti-convulsants impact brain function in a broad fashion, but most target specific areas of the brain. So negative or positive responses can vary widely depending upon the primary location of your brain hyperactivity and the brain areas that are targeted by a particular medication.
For bipolar 1, antidepressants are usually problematic, but there's some controversy over whether or not this is the case with bipolar 2 and the softer varieties of the disorder. There's general agreement that you need to stabilize mood first -- which sometimes means an initial increase in depression -- but this can be treated with antidepressants later on. It's almost as if the anti-convulsant lays the foundation for successful anti-depressant therapy by counteracting the destabilizing aspects of anti-depressants. It was only when I hit upon the right mood stabilizer -- Lamictal -- at the right dosage -- 400mg -- that I was able to benefit from anti-depressant therapy -- EMSAM 9mg.
So, feeling bad on mood stabilizers is not necessarily a bad thing -- and if you suffer from a bipolar spectrum disorder, you will almost certainly need to take one.
Drew
> The reason I don't think I am bipolar is that I did fine on celexa alone for almost 3 years.
>
> The big problems started to occur when I stopped it, and tried to restart it. I think I had a psychotic like reaction to the withdrawl and reintroduction that I never got over.
>
> Sure my mood was swinging around at that point.
>
> So, my question is, are there any "bipolars" who did just fine on an antidepressant alone for a long time, before other symtpoms came in?
>
> Linkadge
poster:dewdropinn
thread:772375
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070730/msgs/772907.html