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Originally Posted by Amazonmom
Lamictal and Lithium are sitting at the pharmacy waiting for me. I have to get some bloodwork done before I am allowed to take them. I have a friend who told me she was taking mood stabilizers for depression stuff. I told her what my official diagnosis was and she said she has bipolar as well! Apparently our NPs are both very up on the latest research about this stuff which is cool.
I really had no idea about all the different forms of bipolar disorder. I thought you had to lose touch with reality during the mania to have it. Wow, my psych nursing class must have really stunk because that is most definitely not true! We spent all of 15 minutes on mania, most of which was talking about how bipolars will manipulate, be noncompliant, not care who they hurt...etc etc etc. And I really had no clue the SSRI drugs could trigger mania or hypomania. WOW there is a lot of ignorance going on in my profession...
Thanks for the support  |
Yeah, Lamictal and Lithium are now my cocktail. I've been on so many other combinations and now I'm weaning down to just Lithium and Lamictal. I was so resistant to Lithium but I haven't had any horrible side effects so far.
It's scary to get that Bipolar diagnosis b/c it brings up all sorts of images in your mind. I also went through nursing school and you definitely only learn about the most severe forms. Then my clinical rotations made it that much more frightening. It really doesn't have to be that bad. If you have a good treatment team and are compliant and find a good combination of meds then it's defniitely something that's manageable.
Good luck and take care~