My doctor started me with Fluoxetine alone, continued to increase the dose to 60 mg, and did not use a mood stabilizer only until recently which is years later. I asked him why he did it this way. He told me most with BP do not have this problem with ADs. So even though it is something to be concerned about, IMHO I do not think mania with ADs happen anywhere near as much as some people think it does.

FWIW

By the way, the previous post about the buddy system makes allot of sense to me.