Posted by med_empowered on January 8, 2007, at 22:06:59
In reply to Re: Bipolar II - it really sucks » cgd092, posted by Phillipa on January 8, 2007, at 21:37:39
you'll need to do bloodowork pretty regularly to see how you're doing with Li levels...it could be that lithium just isn't for you. Docs seem to love it for BP II, but really its best for BP I, with classic features (euphoric mania, so on so forth).
BP II is a completely different animal. Some people w/ BP II can actually do an antidepressant w/o a mood stabilizer...some manage to go off psychotropics altogether. I did read on yahoo news or something a while back that they had worked out ideal depakote dosages/blood levels for both BP I and II..however, with so much individual variation, and the low quality of psychiatric studies in general, I don't know how helpful those guidelines would be.
Why wasn't the lamictal helping? did you still have (hypo)mania or mixed episodes or depression? Or did you have anxiety and attention issues remaining? Personally, Trileptal worked well for me...there's no mandatory blood work (checking blood sodium is probably a good idea, though) and its pretty tolerable. Supposedly its a bit weaker than Tegretol.
Are you on any benzos? Those help a lot of people with mood issues.
Good luck
poster:med_empowered
thread:720616
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070107/msgs/720656.html