I had attempted suicide and was inpatient. I can't do mood stabilizers or antipsychotics. Even lithium was horrible. I lost bladder control.

So it was a last resort. So far I haven't had any side effects from it, so I tolerate it well. I guess I won't know for sure until after my hypomania has passed and I'm in a place where I would normally get severely depressed. Anything we can do to prevent my extremely dark moods I'll try. My pdoc recently upped it when I was showing beginning signs of mania.

In the past year, I've been hospitalized three times. Before this, I had been probably 15 years without having to be hospitalized. So my moods are swinging much faster and my depressions (and manias) are getting far worse than ever before.