I've also been dealing with high blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose levels. I can't say that they've all been caused exclusively by bipolar medications, but the latter certainly hasn't helped. I've been taking medications for some of these (statin, bp med, beta blocker) and must again be much more careful about my sugar and carb consumption. I've got the advantage of loving to cook, loving healthful foods, and knowing what I really should be eating, even if I don't totally do so. I write "totally" because I do eat a lot of healthful things, but just also not so healthful stuff.

During the past 12 years I've had periods when I lost a lot of weight and normalized blood test results. Even at a relatively good weight, I also had times when the results weren't so great anymore. Then mostly normalized again. The weight just wasn't always a factor for me. My diet (especially), exercise level (to a lesser degree), and stress levels were. Also, probably genetics. I know this could be just my experience and not others', though.

I've been pretty stable for most of a couple years now. That makes me very happy! In my particular case, my current med mix (see below) is probably the very best of the lot. I'm not sure if it would have been as good at other times of my life, though. Perhaps 14 years ago it wouldn't have even touched my mania. Things do change. What I can say is that the side effects I have now are no biggies at all compared to ones I had on other combos in the past. Some were just awful! The worst was an evil case of akathisia from a certain med. I'd be happy to gain 30 lbs rather than have that akathisia, especially if I was guaranteed not to keel over with a heart attack. The leaky breasts? Lousy, but tolerable. I suppose the pituitary microadenema was a close second to the akathisia, especially if it came to needing it removed surgically.

I guess I was lucky when it came to weight gain compared to others. However, I may have had much worse problems if I had stayed on certain meds. I'll never know. But while Seroquel was a nightmare for some, Seroquel XR is not so much for me. I didn't gain 100 lbs. Over the last 10 or 11 years, I've only gained as much as 30 lbs max on doses between 400 and 700 mg. Right now I'm about 10 lbs more than I was at age 30 years old (I'm now over 50) when I had never taken a single bipolar medication. I was overweight then, but I blame my mental health issues for that. Yet, back then my blood test results were perfect.