Medication

One of my biggest issue with my Bipolar issues are the meds. I know everyone is different and one needs to try many types and combos of medications to get something that sorta works.

I've gone through alot so far. But my doctor just wants me on strong anti psychotics now. No more mixtures of say, anti depressants or anti anxiety or anything. Just these strong meds. I have tried several already and they reallllyyyy mess me up. And not just for a bit, the side effects stay for months.

Sure I am not.. that depressed anymore. Still am but it's a bit better! But now I am unable to stay awake for more than 5 hours a day, unable to drive, unable to stop twitching, hearing sounds randomly that are not there, and sitting on the toilet most of the day because well I seemed to lose my ability to digest anything.

Some say the side effects, while bad, are leagues better than suffering from bipolar. I don't agree. Because of this, I've been called closed minded by many professionals who then blame me for my issues.

Am I foolish for wanting a new doctor? Or for wanting to take less severe drugs? Is this just a fantasy I'm living in to think I can take a combination of meds that don't turn me into a zombie with no personality who doesn't enjoy anything?

I'm surprised that he just has you on an antipsychotic without some kind of mood stabilizer. All of the antipsychotics will make you drowsy, some more than others. I think all of them have the parkinsons-like side effects. That's according to a neurologist I saw when I was having trouble with Saphris. Everyone is different, though. It's just a matter of working with your doctor to get the right combination.

If you're not happy with your doctor, it definitely doesn't hurt to get a second opinion. The idea is not to control your symptoms by turning you into a zombie. The idea is to find a combination of meds that allow you to function normally without the wild mood swings.

If your doctor does not understand that this is not working for you, then I would definitly get another opinion.
Gayle

The road to wellness is about an improved quality of life. If your quality of life has not improved then your methods are sorely lacking.

If your pdoc is not about improving your quality of life then get a new one. You have to be your own advocate, be vocal about your wellness goals, which trade offs you're willing to entertain and what type of things are deal breakers.

There a few members here who don't buy into the "fat and stable" mindset and their pdocs work together with them to make sure they don't get rxd pills that cause them to balloon and eat furniture.

In sharing that last paragraph, I'm pointing out that your MH service providers are a bunch of a.s.s.holes, douchetards if you will. Just because someone is unwilling to put up with shytti side effects does not make them a horrid patient.

I had a pdoc similar to yours, wouldn't listen to what I said was intolerable and instead of change my meds like I asked, he rxd a side effect med!

Guess I should thank the MOFO because I ended up flushing the lot.

Get a new pdoc, they are service providers and should be providing a service suited to your needs. Zombie suites nobody. Period.
I personally thought the days of Frontal Labotomies were over, evidently not.

My insurance limits me. I have already been to the 2 doctors they actually allow me to see. The next is like a 4 hour drive away. I am working on getting disability and different insurance though.

Yeah he...
I stopped all my meds one day because of some odd side effects i suddenly was getting. I'd wake up extremely dizzy, unable to walk, extremely thirsty with migraines. This came out of no where. I say him the next day, so I only stopped my meds for like 20 hours.

He told me to go cold turkey on them, and put me on some new antipsycotic in replacement. It messed me up horribly and cost me 500 bucks!

When I told him that this med didn't work just... he gets impacient. He jsut suggests more of the smae type of med and when I said I didn't want to try he talked about ECT, outright lying that it had any side effects.

I'm trying to find a new pdoc now but like I said.. limited by insurance. The other one i can see which is actually just down the road from me I tired years ago. Um. He listened to my story, didn't want my medical history and flat out told me that I needed a boyfriend to keep my emotions under control. I just walked out. HOW DO THESE PEOPLE STAY IN BUSINESS?

Thanks for the feed back though. I'm extremely defensive against new meds now and it's not to hear that others feel the same.

What about the atypical anti-psychotics? My pdoc just put me on respirdal. Does it make you eat everything in sight too? I gained 30 pounds on lithium in 2011 and can't get rid of them. I am having 2 knee surgeries this fall and winters and I'm 40 lbs. overweight and I can't seem to lose the weight. I sure don't need to gain more.

The atypical anti-psychotics do make you gain weight. I am on Abilify and I have gone from being a 32 waist to a 36 waist in pants.

I agree with that. I haven't found medications that work out for me either. As awful and debilitating as my natural state can be, medications made my situation so much worse. Most of the doctors I've seen (and I've seen several over a period of years) have been willing to work with me to try to find the right combos, make dose adjustments and so on. Still, I feel like nobody knows what will work and like I'm being experimented on. The process has been a nightmare. Meds have made me intensely suicidal (I sometimes get ideation during my natural episodes, but I don't think I'm a real in danger of doing it) and made me have psychotic symptoms - severe symptoms I've never experienced off the medications. Side effects also continued for me months after I stopped taking them and that gave me concerns about permanent damage. I don't refuse medications just because I'm being stubborn; they scare me and lower the quality of my life to a degree I can't tolerate.

I'm still willing to do therapy and make lifestyle changes, but I really don't feel like medications are right for me. I know medications do help a lot of people and I wouldn't necessarily recommend the path I've chosen to anyone else. Fortunately in my situation, I do go through long periods of being mostly stable where refusing medication doesn't affect me on a daily basis, but I have made huge sacrifices in my lifestyle for it (I have given up on having a regular 9-5 type of job, for example).

I'm on Seroquel and I eat constantly.

When it comes to your insurance ...IF you would have to travel 4 hours to see a provider they will usually allow you to see someone out of network( closer) .. Noone needs or can drive 4 hours to see a Pdoc ..thats just ridiculous.

Keep standing up for yourself research and research and research all kinds of medication .. ANY medications I have taken are ones my pdoc and I agree about. ... If your Pdoc wont work with you.... find a new one.

Yes I agree with what Trippin said 1000 %

Sounds like Saphris. Messed me up too, and a 30 day supply cost me almost $400, even with insurance. I don't know of anyone who can take that crap.

Please do not give up. Find a new Dr. There is a combo for you. Keep searching.

Zyprexa worked GREAT but put about 25 lbs. on me almost overnight and caused my blood sugar levels to skyrocket. It was bad enough that even my p-doc talked to me about starting insulin, then took me off of it. Luckily, that was all that was needed to get my diabetes back under control, and when I switched to Geodon a few months later, I lost all the Zyprexa weight plus another 40 lbs.

Geodon gets overlooked a lot, mainly because it can cause heart rhythm disturbances and sometimes isn't as effective as the other atypical APs. It works very well for me now after having had to adjust the dose upwards a couple of times to tamp down the mania.....now it's like a protective shield over bubbling lava, it keeps a lid on that stuff and lets me function as if it weren't there at all.

I agree with your last sentence, it makes me feel the same. But I do wonder how sedated I am from it as I sometimes get very fatigued, even when mentally I am well. It took 8 years of trying all sorts of combos for me. Zeldox/Geodon was the one that got me stable and kept me there.

Is it bad for me to want meds that do not come with bad side effects?
I'm sure I could be made 'stable' and 'functioning' with some powerful meds. It's happened before: I was on a potent mixture and basically I was a zombie with no emotion, personalty or drive. I just was there, slowly getting fat and working a job where I was the local robot doing easy, menial tasks over and over. I couldn't even enjoy simple hobbies like reading, playing video games or even talking to friends. Everything was dull.

Technically, I was cured. No more mood swings, no severe depression, no self loathing or any of that. But I wasn't me at all. I wasn't even a full person, just some drugged slave.

I do not want this. And I get the impression from doctors and therapists that I am silly and closed minded for not wanting this. After all, the meds ARE helping, but to me it's replacing one bad issue with another bad issue.

I'm on Seroquel and after I take it at night, I can eat like a ravenous monster. That mixed with sleeping pills, sometimes I wake up and will have eaten/drank all this stuff and I don't even remember it.

That said, Seroquel has been the best for leveling out my moods and helping me sleep.

One of my first pdocs said that every drug can affect everybody differently. Everyone has a different metabolism, a different blood chemistry, etc. Some drugs that make some people gain weight don't affect others that way.

I have body dysmorphic disorder as well as BP II. I personally think I would not be able to stay on meds that caused me to gain a lot of weight. That is very sad to me that I would rather be out of mind and miserable, than overweight.

Being mentally ill doesn't make sense.....

You can say THAT again.....sigh......

Well if you're bad for wanting meds with no side effects then so am I. The trouble is, all of these meds screw around with your brain chemistry. They are like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Side effects are inevitable. It's just a matter of working with your doctor to find the right combination that works with minimal side effects, or at least side effects you can live with, and feeling like a zombie is not a side effect you should have to live with.

My Pdoc is very careful because I will refuse to take anything that could possibly make me gain weight and any side effects besides dry mouth I will not take. I've been told more than once that I really have him backed into a corner. I know I'm difficult, it took two years of therapy to convince me to get an Rx for an AP PRN but I refuse to live with side effects. He's of the opinion now as long as I'm mostly stable (ie. able to stay out of the hospital) I'm good, it's better then me taking nothing. No one should be ask to choose their mental health or physical health please be proactive. If need be go to county (city) mental health, they are on a sliding scale.

Do you keep any type of tracker? I keep a daily tracker that lists my mood, how much food I ate, how much water I drank, what time I took all medicines, and how much I slept. I have a hard time getting everything out when I go to the doctor so i just hand them my tracker and say how can we improve this this. Right now my nurse practitioner has me on Seroquel and I sleep 12-15 hours a day, and am in a fog the eight hours I'm awake. It's hard for me to drive on it beause my vision is blurred. So when I see her in two weeks we are going to make a change. For me this is unacceptable and I'm going to do my homework on other drugs that have less side effects. You are your best advocate and if you do your homework and put it all on paper with maybe your doctor will finally listen because now it sounds like he doesn't.

Here is the thing .. Seems the majority of people/doctors etc Think Bipolar can be controlled on medications..Why cant people learn to cope with Bipolar using non medication ways? Meditation? Mindfulness? Coping skills ? etc? Of course noone can impliment all of these healthy ways at once .. it's a process , a process than can be done and often is done while on the medications. The more coping skills you can apply to your life maybe you will need less medications.

I do believe that we have more control over our illness than modern science and Big Pharma would like us to know about.

If your Pdoc doesn't listen then you need a new one. You do not have to suffer with being snowed under with meds or big as house but able to said I am stable . There are options.

I would really question who is being close minded you or your pdoc and T ? The very word "closed" , isn't limiting things to one option ( psychotropics ) more closed than being "open" to other options ? Surely I would think so.

Thing is other options are not near as profitable or marketable. Most of them you can learn and impliment yourself from your own home. This kind of earases need for Pdoc, T, and bigpharma... wonder why they won't present other options and when they do.. they present them as a side dish, or condiment but never ever as the main dish.

Not being a full person or feeling like yourself at all is anything but being cured. It's life robbing, it should be disturbing, not swept under the rug with an "at least your mood is stable". Anyones mood would be "stable" when you are drugged into zombietown. It's almost or should be criminal. You are a person and this is your life. It matters a great deal.

You are the one who can decide what is helping and what is not helping and you get to decide what defines the word help. I was told the exact same lines that I suspect you were told as well given by what you write. I think most of us were.

There is nothing really helpful about replacing one bad issue with another, it defies the meaning.

Christina is so spot on with everything she said.

There is no reason to live like this. You deserve better, and I believe it is out there.

My last pdoc wanted me on so many meds, he had me on six at once, and his idea was antipsychotics for life in my case. When I told him I felt like a zombie he sneered and said antipsychotics don't have that affect . I asked him if he would take them...he didn't answer. He is no longer my dr.

I'm on Zeldox....it's new. But its weight neutral and my insurance covers it.