My experience was similar to others. Didn't get diagnosed with bipolar until I was 29, but had all the warning signs in childhood. Depression, then sudden hypomania for hours or days. At 20, during a depressive episode brought on by college stress the doc prescribed Paxil. I had a psychotic reaction and was doing dangerous things so I took myself off of it after 2 or 3 months. It was a horrible withdrawal period. I vowed to never use meds again. I had several mixed episodes since then (in retrospect I can see) where I drove across the country and back in 10 days with little to no sleep. I stopped and stayed with friends twice, so it was really only 5-6 days I did all that driving in. I also had an extremely sexual period from 2003-2004 (ending my virginity at 23 with a bang). Ha! I had hypomania almost the whole time I lived in SLC, Utah and Brooklyn, NY. Toward the end of that 2007, I experienced panic attacks and PTSD. When I moved here to OR, I hit rock bottom in summer of 2008 and went in to see the school's (oh I'm back in college again...started in 1998, this is number 4 for me) psychiatric nurse practitioner and she treated me as a unipolar patient, which I thought I was. The SSRIs made me lethargic or feel worse. Depression not solved at all. After a year and a trip to the hospital and coming on PC in 2009, I finally figured it out. I was bipolar. Then they started trying things like Lamictal and Seroquel on me, but I went into a manic episode last summer and stopped trusting the nurse and got in with a real psychiatrist.

Sorry this is getting so long. Basically, none of the med combos they've tried on me have totally helped. The longest normal stretch I've had since starting meds in Jun '08 has been a couple of weeks this past February. The psychiatrist I've seen for the past year has all but given up hope on me since they've tried so many combos to no avail. The latest med, Cymbalta, added this morning to my Geodon, Levothyroxin, Cogentin, diazepam cocktail, has certainly made me chattier than normal after I slept away the entire morning.

My mom thinks my bipolar has more to do with heavy metals poisoning (I've had a test and I do have elevated levels of lead and arsenic) and need of natural supplements, and other herbal remedies. I'd like to believe her, but I've only heard of some people who can do the omega fish oils and flush their meds. Most people have to take all the supplements like Vitamin D in huge quantities AND take their meds to get the full effects. I'm biased toward science. She's biased toward homeopathic remedies. So I take the pills she sends me and I take the ones my docs prescribe for me.

If the combo I'm on doesn't work, pdoc says I should consider ECT. That terrifies me. If it does work, everyone on PC is going to have to put up with my long replies because I actually have the clarity of mind to read and reply.

Good luck to you in your quest. It's a long road and plenty of dejecting dead ends before you reach euthymia.