Posted by Mikey_C on March 6, 2003, at 10:43:34
In reply to Re: Withdrawing from Depakote, posted by tina on March 6, 2003, at 10:33:08
Well, my professional diagnosis (for what it's worth) is that I'm not Bi-Polar, but I'm Anxiety NOS or something like that. The way the Doctor described it to my Father and I was that I'm suffering from a bit of depression, a bit of anxiety, some post-traumatic stress, and increased the severity of all of that through years of drug abuse. So.... It has been recommended that I get onto Seroquel and stop using Depakote, and after the Depakote is safely out of my blood, add a little bit of Lamictal to my Seroquel and Clonazepam.I'm expecting that early next week, once my Therapist is back from her vacation, she is going to help me get off of the Depakote and eventually start up the Lamictal like the Mood Disorders Specialist who completed my diagnosis recommended that I do. Of course she'll probably ask me to take it slowly... but I'm too impatient for that... If I'm going to stop using a particular drug I'd more than likely just stop taking it altogether and suffer the side effects for a few days instead of going slowly through it and suffering minor side effects for a few weeks.
At the moment, I have no anxiety whatsoever and am sleeping like a baby BUT my motivation has completely disappeared and I'm starting to feel my mood kind of bottoming out again, which will lead me back into depression. It's like I have too many meds in me that are working on sedating me so that I don't become manic and don't have panic attacks BUT since my mood is used to jumping both up AND down, it's starting to decide to just go down and stay there.
Anyways, from what the Doctor said that gave me my Diagnosis said, and my Therapist will most likely follow her recommendations, I'm to be taken off of Depakote in the near future and was just kind of wondering how bad it would be to go about it cold turkey. As long as it's nothing similar to my Effexor withdrawal, I think I'll be able to handle it.
poster:Mikey_C
thread:206402
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030306/msgs/206432.html