|
Yes, it's known as "medication poop out."
Unfortunately, that has been my experience with possibly all psych meds I've been on, sooner or later. If we're fortunate the medication has room for an increased dose, which is one reason why many pdocs try to use the lowest dose possible to treat symptoms.
In my experience, sometimes the increase will work for awhile, but oftentimes not as well as the original prescription worked.
Many years ago it was standard for psychiatric patients to take "medication breaks." The hope was to reset the brain so that when the drug was reintroduced it would again be effective. The breaks were almost always done when patients were in long-term psychiatric hospitalization, however. Unfortunately, the med breaks usually did more harm than good and weren't as effective as hoped, which is why med breaks fell out of popularity.
I believe that the loss of medication effectiveness is due to the body building up a tolerance for the medication.
Also, it's possible for our minds build up a "tolerance" for medication. i.e., We feel like a med is no longer working because we've taken it for a long time. But that's debatable.
For people with BD it seems to me to be especially challenging. Most of us require a reassessment of our meds fairly often due to mood states; on top of that, there's the poop out effect, which requires even more med adjustment.
It all takes patience, that's for sure.
Almost 50% of BD patients are not med-compliant, which can lead to "kindling." Another potential medication issue.
__________________
|