I have been feeling low for the past 9 months now - ever since I had to stop Lamictal due to a bad reaction.

My pdoc switched me over to Lithium 9 months ago and we have been slowly increasing the dose to the point where my blood level has been 1.11 for about six weeks. I'm still feeling low, unmotivated, low self-esteem, I'm not eating properly, etc.

So I saw my pdoc today and she said the Lithium is obviously not working since we should have seen a difference by now. She suggested I stop Lithium and go with Modafinil instead. Modafinil is used to treat people with sleep disorders but she says research has shown it's useful for people with depression. I was pretty worried about using something like that so I opted for increasing my Latuda from 80 to 120 (I was on 120 a year ago) - I thought it's worth a shot.

I mentioned that I have been seeing things that I know are not there. We talked about that quite a bit. We uncovered some paranoia as well. She feels this part of the depression and nothing to worry about especially since this started recently. She feels it will clear up along with the depression.

She also recommended that I go back to a clinic we have here called the MDPU - it's part of the largest teaching hospital here and they do evaluations and assessments of people with depression and bipolar. They come up with treatment plans based on their assessment. It takes about a month to get in to see them.

I'll try the Latuda to see if it helps while I wait for the appointment. There are six weeks left of summer and I'm not holding my breath that I'll feel much better for it but I'll enjoy what I can.