Posted by Tomatheus on February 15, 2014, at 23:19:45
In reply to Re: Lamictal Higher dose causing anger and depression, posted by Quietly_Existing on February 15, 2014, at 21:51:13
Hello again Quietly_Existing,
Thank you for explaining everything that you did in your post. I'm sorry to hear about your response to Trileptal and about the fact that your psychiatrist advised you to stop taking the medication abruptly. I'm certainly not an expert, but it is my understanding that stopping a medication like an anticonvulsant abruptly can potentially be disastrous, and I'm glad that you had the sense to bring yourself off of the Trileptal slowly.
I think it's good that you're both seeing a therapist and that you went to have a general practitioner order some bloodwork. It's too bad that the test results didn't come back with anything that might potentially help you with the treatment of your bipolar disorder, although, at the same time, I do think it's good that no signs of any other health problems were found (at least judging from the test results). I do have to ask you, though, if a vitamin D level test was included in the bloodwork. There seem to be some similarities between your responses to medications and my responses to medications (my responses to lithium and Lamictal were not completely unlike yours, and even though I responded well to the MAOIs and did not react adversely to Wellbutrin, I had some problems with antidepressants, as well). These similarities, of course, might just be meaningless, but I figured that I'd ask you specifically about vitamin D because that's one thing that came back abnormal for me, and I wouldn't like to see that stone go unturned for you.
I read what you wrote to Eric (Phidippus) about antipsychotics, and I do understand your desire to avoid that class of medications if you can, but I did want to put in a word about Abilify before I finished this message. Basically, of the antipsychotics that I've tried for my affective psychosis, Abilify at 5 mg has so far been the only one that I've been able to stand taking. Unlike the rest of the antipsychotics on the market -- both the "typical" ones and the other "atypicals" -- Abilify is what's called a partial agonist at the D2 receptor sites. Basically, instead of binding to the D2 receptors and exerting no effect like other antipsychotics, Abilify activates the receptors, but to a lesser extent than medications that are considered to be full agonists of the D2 receptors. So, even though Abilify is technically an atypical antipsychotic just like Geodon, Seroquel, Risperdal, Zyprexa, and others, I think that the medication in some ways belongs in a class by itself because of its unique effect on the D2 receptors. I seem to respond best to 5 mg of Abilify, but of course, some patients find that higher doses work best for them. Anyway, I just wanted to put that out there for you to think about. I know that you responded poorly to Geodon, but maybe there's an antipsychotic out there (Abilify, or something else) that you might benefit from.
Finally, thank you for writing back to me. I hope that somehow you'll find some kind of treatment that will get you from being in "quietly existing" mode to being in more of a living mode.
Tomatheus
Has an affective psychosis with strong symptoms of fatigue, hypersomnia, and difficulty concentrating
Taking Abilify & supplements
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1060718
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140214/msgs/1060742.html