TL;DR at bottom
I know, we've been working on this for literally months on end now.
Haldol had to go for side effects. Vraylar wasn't effective, fluphenazine made me restless but it's good as a PRN but my doc is taking me off it because she's adding another antipsychotic and she knows I don't like being on 3, I refuse to take anything that causes weight gain (most APs, depakote) because I have pretty severe bulimia and don't want to go down that road of binging/purging 4x a day and tearing my esophagus and shytting myself and passing out in the middle of the woods again, lithium gives me a life threatening reaction, allergic to risperidone/paliperidone/tegretol, lurasidone/asenapine/topiramate don't work.
My doc just gave me a sample pack of Fanapt but mostly for "psychotic stuff" (that I don't eve think is schizo/bipolar), and so far all it's done is give me blurry vision and make me feel weak, tired, clumsy, and fall down twice. On the first day of the starter pack. I took day two this morning hoping I'd get used to it but I'm calling my psychiatrist when they open. (It's not 100% that it's the med doing this. My calorie total over the past 4 days is about 2200 and
).
I don't even think I have a true "bipolar disorder" or a true "schizoaffective disorder" like most people that respond to meds. I think I just abused my brain too much with TBIs, lack of sleep, trauma, and substances. Even though I've been told I have "classic bipolar" because it responds so well to lithium....which I can't take because it ****ed up my kidneys. But nothing else works and is tolerable.
Maybe I'll post this in psych meds, but anyone have any experiences with either geodon/ziprasidone or trileptal/oxcarbazepine when it comes to (hypo)mania/mixed states/rapid cycling? Side effects? Funny feelings with abilify/lamictal on board (chances are I'm stopping the fanapt).
I'm starting to think my "baseline" is just """""hypomania"""""" (racing thoughts, distractibility, hyperactivity, insomnia, hyperfocus, talking excessively, impulsivity, probably more ADHD stuff that just
looks like hypomania to the untrained eye) and my "mania" is just hypomania and I'm really just a super hyperactive rare BP2 that doesn't do a lot of cycling. Then when I get the type of depression that takes away your thoughts and energy I look like a normal person that just could probably go without smelling like pond scum and week old salty pork chops. That happens like 4 weeks out of the year though. The rest is like I said, "omg can't sleep gotta print tabs for Creep and Wicked Game and Fast Car and Sweet Child O Mine, and Tennessee Whiskey and and and and and and and and and....but what about the harp? what kind of chord progressions can I come up with that have NEVER BEEN HEARD BEFORE? I'mma try and compose something using 18 basic scales in a single key... I choose A for Awesome!
But my sleep problems go wayyyyy beyond just mania as I have CLEARLY staccatoed out in my first post. I need to fix 'em all. Or cope with them. Or pirouette around them. Need legit advice not just "pdoc gotta do their job." because she is and I've been med compliant and even last night I took my PRN ativan and some melatonin and only got 3 hours of broken sleep.
TL;DR: Probably not even bipolar mania treated with meds, maybe just hypomania stacked on all other factors listed in first post. Tried most meds, trying the rest. I feel like my daytime schedule and sleep hygiene is sleep friendly but clearly that's not enough.