Posted by blueberry on April 25, 2006, at 18:46:50
In reply to Blueberry, posted by bipolarspectrum on April 25, 2006, at 17:22:52
It might sound strange and certainly goes against what psychiatrists believe, but for me the best mood stabilizers are actually long halflife antidepressants, and actually prozac is the only one that fits that bill. Prozac was never a great antidepresant all by itself for me, but as a mood stabilizer it was flawless.
I sure did like the way depakote felt though. Darn it all if it only lasted 3 days. What a tease. Years ago lamictal was the same way. With each dose increase I had a couple good days, and then I was back to where I was.
I am not committed to it and I'm still unsure of what to do, but 3 days ago I restarted prozac at 2.5mg (I am so sensitive right now I couldn't possibly tolerate a regular dose of anything). Already in just 3 days things have smoothed out. My fear and paranoia has dropped a lot in 3 days, daily cycles have smoothed out a lot, mood hasn't improved much though.
> Hey Blue,
>
> I experience the same thing with mood stabilizers! On both tegretol and trileptal (and now possibly Depakote) I get an initial mood boost and stoppage of cycling.. but this never lasts past a few days mabye a week.. what r u doing for this??
> bps
>
> > My only complaint with depakote was that it only provided good benefits for the first 3 days and then nothing after that. My mood improved dramatically and the mood swings stopped. But after 3 days, mood again dropped and the swings returned. Dosage increase didn't do anything except magnify the fogginess side effect.
> >
> > The brain fog side effect was the only side effect for me, other than weight gain which was desirable for me. If the depakote had kept working, I would not have minded the brain fog. I just didn't want to have that side effect when the med wasn't doing anything for me.
>
>
poster:blueberry
thread:636783
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060423/msgs/637013.html