Posted by JadeKelly on December 1, 2008, at 10:30:05
In reply to Treatement resistant bipolar depression..., posted by chocamine on November 22, 2008, at 11:03:47
Hi Chocamine,
I can only offer experience with family member who is bipolar. It came on suddenly at age ~16, he was hospitalized 3 times for mania, many meds were tried, Haldol for acute behavior, Risperdal and Abilify. He required large doses of each of these to keep his mania under control.
He was cycling every 3 weeks.
However, I couldn't bare to watch him turn into a paranoid child with no life. I requested a mild antipsych med to see if we could handle manic behaviors at home. Hospital made it worse.
He has always been on a good dose of Depakote for epilepsy, so we then just added seroquel. He takes 300mg daily, anything less and we have problems.
He is himself again. Happy, funny, passionate, kind, and the usual arguments you see with teens! He has friends and family that love him. I say this because prior to his being stablized (I believe as a result of the Seroquel), he was very difficult to be around.
He recently told me he felt happy (not at all manic) and wasn't it good the "episodes" were gone. So, obviously every one is different, I joined this sight after he was well again (9 mos now), and I think everyone, even bipolar respond differently to different meds. So thats his story, hope it helps. Current meds:
1500mg depakote a day/750 2xday
300mg seroquel a day/100 morn 200 eveSide effects, needs plenty of sleep. Falls asleep in class at times, cognitive abilities blunted some but I think that is a result of either the epilepsy, the depakote (which isn't a choice for him) or both, as that was present prior to Seroquel.
Good luck in your search, it does get much better over time, even without an A/D was our experience. The rapid cycling made adding an A/D difficult. Controlling the manic period would be top priority I would think.
~Jade
poster:JadeKelly
thread:864627
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081123/msgs/866046.html