Posted by fionamck on May 8, 2006, at 7:52:36
I was diagnosed with bipolar II in June 05 and my psychiatrist put me on Epilim, raising the dose steadily from 200mg to 600mg. I am also taking Effexor - increasing steadily until my current dose of 225mg. I had previously been taking just Lexapro (20mg) for clinical depression for about 2 years, but noticed my depression getting worse and increased mood swings. I keep a mood chart and each time I have increased the Effexor, my mood goes up to 'happy/optimistic' for a day or two (once I actually hit 'exhilarated', which was an achievement after 4 years of black depression!), then it drops slowly down again and my cycles (rapid: up and down in a day, usually) move only through the range of 'okay/content' to 'depressed/uncommunicative', increasingly 'suicidal' and then back up to 'okay'. I have been counting 'okay' days and have averaged only 10 days a month since June when my mood has hit the 'okay' and stayed there for 24 hours without a drop down again. The rest have been in the grey to black zone. This is not the way I want the rest of my life to be: 10 okay days a month and the rest hideous. I am puzzled as to why I have been diagnosed bipolar II when I don't get the elation or mania. I do, however, suffer extreme irritability at regular intervals, and sometimes rage over tiny things. These generally don't coincide with the 'happy' days, though. I actually only hit 'happy'/'optimistic' for about three days a month (and these are generally isolated 12-24 hour periods, not 3 days together). Does this sound like bipolar II to anyone out there? My psychiatrist is insistent it is. My therapist is treating me for Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a diagnosis I got from a different psychiatrist when I sought a second opinion. She works closely with my psychiatrist, though, and seems to think he is doing the right thing. The mood swings have become more rapid over the last month and my depression has dropped right down to the depths. I have begun to self-harm again, too, about 3 times this month so far (May). I am sick and tired of taking expensive medicine with makes me: sweat excessively, sleep too much, makes my nose run and my hands shake, gives me constipation, wrecks my orgasms, makes it a task and a half to lose the weight that I suspect the Lexapro helped me to gain, and at the end of all of that, it does not seem to be working. My psychiatrist's response has been to ask me to cut down on the stress levels at work, but that I cannot do without changing job, and as I work abroad and need sponsorship (and love my job), I cannot do. My partner is not earning enough to support me if I can't get work. He then suggested increasing the Epilim, rather than the Effexor. I am loath to do this because each time we have increased the Epilim it seems to have cut down the high moods, and I have few enough of those as it is (when I say 'high mood', I mean feeling happy, I don't mean psychosis or mania or doing risky things). He says that is okay because it also reduces my low moods, but I don't think it does, significantly. I also really, really, really don't want to increase a drug that causes weight gain (at the moment I think the weight loss aspect of the Effexor is balancing that out); one of my key issues is low self-esteem and body image and that would be the last straw. What I want is to increase the antidepressant and stop these black days of total despair. Does anyone have any advice or thoughts? I would really appreciate any comments. I'm losing faith in the whole drug thing, really, but have tried everything else I can think of. Have also tried, with no real results: Zoloft, Sertraline, Paroxetine, Lexapro. Thanks.
poster:fionamck
thread:641250
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060504/msgs/641250.html