Hi, Nightly and welcome to the Psych Central Forums!

I have been on a maintenance dosage of 500 mg of Depakote ER for years - I literally can't recall how many but at least 5. I am also on 100 mg of Zoloft. The Depakote was added to the Zoloft when my pdoc revised his initial diagnosis of Major Depression Recurrent to Bipolar II (which has recently been "upgraded" to Bipolar I.)

Anyway...I have not had any difficulties or any side effects at all from Depakote ~except~ I was originally prescribed the regular Depakote (as opposed to the ER version) and I began having constant diarrhea. I even had a colonoscopy to determine the cause. Then somewhere I read that diarrhea can be a side effect of Depakote. I discussed it with my pdoc and he changed my Rx to the Depakote ER and the diarrhea went away!

I was instructed to take it at night as it makes me drowsy and helps with insomnia.

Larry - it's interesting you mention Lamictal. I saw my pdoc today and he put me on this med as nothing else has lifted the depressive episode I have been in for the last 2 months. Have you taken this med? I would be interested in your input on it if so.

Fortunately there are a lot of meds out there and, as evidenced just by the few of us on this thread, different meds affect different people in different ways so hang in there, Nightly.