Posted by Christ_empowered on May 27, 2011, at 10:10:28
In reply to depakote dosing advice, posted by g_g_g_unit on May 27, 2011, at 9:44:51
I dunno man. I had to take a hefty dose of Depakote for acute psychotic mania, and I hated the stuff. Started at 1500, all at once in the AM, ended up on 1000 of the xr b/c my blood levels got too high on 1500mgs of the instant release.
I think you should try talking to your doc about getting some blood work. If you're not hitting a high enough level, you're basically just using a decidedly unpleasant sedative. Go too high for whatever issue you have, and you're a) dumbing yourself down and b) risking side-effects and toxicity (depending on how high you go).
If you have insurance, I'd really, really recommend the xr. The er...whatever, its not that great. But the xr is about as gentle as depakote gets and if you take it with dinner you should be calming down in time for bed and then it'll still be calming you down in the AM. The only downside is that I think with the xr you sometimes have to push the dose up a little to get to the same blood level, but if you're taking small amounts anyway that shouldn't be a huge deal.
Good luck!
poster:Christ_empowered
thread:986350
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110515/msgs/986352.html