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Capriciousness · Jun 21, 2015, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CopperStar

I experience mostly episodes of dysphoric mania.
- Insomnia
- Racing, scrambled, chaotic thoughts of dark/morbid nature
- Agitation, irritability
- Paranoia
- Delusions ranging from mild to very severe
- Mild, brief hallucinations
- Suicidal ideation
- Severe anxiety with hostility to perceived threats
- Jittery, frequently pacing and talking to myself
- Substance issues, self-medicating (THC, non-presc. Xanax, alcohol)
- Random intense grief
Etc, etc, etc

Have not had any medication for several years now but recently got insurance. So I found a psychiatrist and went to see her. She does not want to put me on a mood stabilizer, she wants me to just take an atypical anti-psychotic. I think this is because I have had several episodes of severe delusions that totally messed up my life plus some mild hallucinations. My moods are more covert I think because I isolate a lot and internalize most of my emotions. So I think she is trying to nip psychosis in the bud and then see if that works. Just my guess, though. I don't know.

She is pushing for me to start with Abilify but I am scared of it after reading reviews that say it can make you even more agitated and restless. My sleep is already sparse and erratic and I am already very agitated most of the time. So I'm scared of it now. She told me to research options though so I think I get to have a say in what I try.

I am extremely nervous about this though. I have been using alcohol, weed and Xanax from other people to try to control my symptoms for a long time now, also chain smoking like a pack a day of cigarettes on average. Part of the deal here is that I will stop drinking, using weed or taking Xanax and give the medication an honest try.

So I am worried about increase irritability from not self-medicating anymore even though I plan to stop once I have a proper medication, but I am still nervous about it. And then with these reviews I am even more nervous.

I read about Seroquel since it is supposed to be more sedating but some reviews say it made their psychosis worse.

Then there is Zyprexa but a lot of stuff says that it will not help much with the depression aspect only the mania symptoms.

This feels extremely daunting and I'm just nervous as all hell. I know that I have anxiety, agitation and paranoia anyway, too, so I can't even tell how much of my nervousness makes sense and how much is just symptoms.

I have managed to stay out of the hospital for several years now, although I have had multiple episodes where I probably should have been hospitalized. Instead I just lost apartments, lost jobs, lost friends, lost independence. But I stayed out of the hospital and managed to not traumatize my family.

I am so nervous that a medication is going to destabilize me really bad after reading these reviews and that all of my will power will be overwhelmed by it. I really don't want to go to the hospital or stress out my family.

I even know that reading reviews is a lot like a hypchondriac looking up symptoms online and then thinking they have the worst possible thing. I know that. I know that the reviews probably only depict a small fraction of people who had bad reactions. But still the risk is there, and I am still really anxious about it.

Has anyone here had a bad reaction to starting a medication? How did you handle it? Or anyone else here also get really nervous about starting medication? I am just sort of venting and relating I guess.

I also don't know how to pick one. It is so individual and at the end of the day I feel like doing all this research has just wound me up for no reason because I still can't really choose or predict what will happen.

I have about a week to decide.

How did you go about trying to choose which medication to try?

And can just an anti-psychotic really handle BP 1? Is it normal that she doesn't want to use a mood stabilizer? What I read about lithium doesn't sound so scary because everything is saying it has a strong anti-suicide property. But she said no lithium and no depakote. I didn't look into depakote don't know about it, but lithium kept coming up in articles about BP.

Hey there. It sucks I know. I'm going to throw out some opinions and experiences and you can do what you want with them.

I have been to a lot of pdocs trying to find a good one. The good ones I have had and the awesome one I have now all say that Bipolar 1 must be treated with a mood stabilizer in the long term. If a patient is initially presenting manic then that needs to be resolved with and AP or whatever but then they need a real mood stabilizer in addition or instead or whatever. That is just what my docs said.

As for Abilify...I was basically feeling very similar to how you are now when I first got dxed and I was put on Abilify. It is different for everyone but for me it was complete hell. It stopped my dysphoric mania I guess but it made the agitation and anxiety and all of it soooo much worse. I couldn't sleep. I was crawling the walls. I was soooo uncomfortable. when I finally went off of it it was such a huge relief. I felt so happy to JUST be depressed instead of depressed and agitated beyond belief.

So what should you do?

I don't know exactly what you should do about which med but you are doing what you should be doing by reading and talking and asking. Most of all what you should do is remember that it is a partnership. You don't have to just take whatever they give you. When my first Pdoc sent me home with the Abilify sample packs I had never even heard the word antipsychotic. I had no clue. Second time around with meds years later I had researched them like crazy and decided I needed Lamictal so then I just kept going until I found one who would prescribe it for me. I was right. It is awesome for me.

Good luck!