Newly Diagnosed and Scared

Hi:
I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 with rapid cycling about a month ago. I am so scared. I am engaged to my best friend and I read somewhere that like 90% of marriages fail if one of the people is bipolar.

I hate my medicine. My doctor has me on Ziprasidone HCL, two capsules at night. About an hour after taking them I lose all emotion, sense of feeling/joy and start slurring my words. If I don't get 9 hours of sleep I feel like a drunk driver in the morning. I had a manic episode, shopping spree/hypersexual behavior, before I was diagnosed and the doctor gave me this to bring me down out of my mania. At any given day I feel hundreds of emotions, but on this medication I feel anxiety and worry constantly about everything-- particularly money.

The doctor wants me to research anti-convulsants and mood stabilizers for my permanent medication. I weigh 350 lbs and am obese, I cannot gain any more weight at all! I am afraid to death of lithium, I think it will push me over the 400 lb mark and cause me to be a zombie. A healthy sex life is important to me and I couldn't even get it up last night on Ziprasidone and when I did I lost sensation. I just want to be normal. This blows.

Sorry.. needed to vent. I need recommendations on the best med or med combo to treat bipolar cycling without
making me a zombie
making me drive like im drunk
making me feel so tired all the time
making me gain weight
making me lose sex functions.

Thanks for the help in advance. I really really hate this.

i take welbutrin which is supposed to be activating and give you energy and possible weight loss. I also take lamictal which hasnt made me gain weight. I also take Ziprasidone 80 mg and it does make me sleepy. There are lots of other antipsycotics out there. Ive tried abilify and latuda and liked both of them although abilify caused weight gain. Topimax is sometimes used for mood and it usually causes weight loss. It's really trial and error. Some people gain weight on certain meds and others dont..

I also have type 1 rapid-cycling bipolar disorder and other nasty stuff, but I think lithium is a miracle medication. Before lithium, I was "treated" to a variety of new-age designer psychotropics - some of which had side effects that would have left me physically disabled or dead had I not discontinued them. In all cases however, nothing worked with 100% efficiency until now with the lithium. I might also add that lithium does not affect sexual drive or performance, and I've not had a problem with weight gain since I started it fifteen months ago. Most importantly, lithium does not have the slightest effect on my cognitive functioning - I'm as sharp as a razor blade and as quick as a diamond-back rattler. GOOD LUCK!

Wow. I have never heard of Lithium not causing weight gain. I have heard from three friends it would turn me into a zombie and cause me to balloon. At 350 lbs I cannot afford to gain weight. I wouldn't care if I was a normal sized person, but I can't go from morbidly obese to the over 400lb club. Anyone else think Lithium is the answer?

All I am on now is Ziprasidone, no mood stabilizers. Honestly, I really really hate it because even though it did work (I'm no longer manic) it threw me into the worst depression I have felt in a while.. and I am SO neurotic- worrying nonstop and being very insecure.

Lamotrigine (lamictal) is more effective for bipolar 2 disorder, specifically bipolar depressive episodes, than bipolar 1. It does not help mania and psychosis as effectively as other anticonvulsant mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.

For BP2 though, if you can avoid the skin rashes, it's supposed to be great. No real side effects. lamotrigine for bipolar disorder

The side effects of medication are individual specific, so something that might not cause weight gain and loss of libido in one person might have grossly different outcomes for another person. Stay patient with the trial and error process.

I take Trileptal, and it's stabilized me significantly. No weight gain or loss of libido. Tegretol is more effective, apparently, but has more side effects. You could consider either. I couldn't take Lamotrigine because of a severe skin rash.

Good luck.

When I started on lithium, I initially gained about 5 pounds. Two months after that I lost 30 pounds in an extremely unhealthy way. I realized I couldn't live like that, and last summer my weight returned to my original set point. Lithium seems to be weight neutral for me. I didn't permanently gain any weight at all, the initial 5 pounds evened out. No loss of libido, no sedation. But it didn't help my mood either, and I'm currently being tapered off of it because it may have damaged my kidneys, but for some people, it really works.

I'm having good luck right now combining Seroquel and Abilify. I'm not sure if the seroquel caused weight gain - initially I was on Seroquel and Risperidone and the Risperidone definitely caused weight gain, but I lost it all when I went off of it. I've only been on the Abilify for 2 weeks or so, so I'm not sure about weight gain with that one. My psychiatrist picked it because she said it was good for depression and relatively weight-neutral.

Don't give up, you'll find the right combination eventually. Like psychehedone said, it's trial and error. When you hit that right combination, it's all worth it.

It's really up to you because different people have different experiences. I had serious side effects and no mood improvement from lithium. I gained 20lbs, which I know was from that because I was bordeine anorexic.

However there are many people on the board to whom lithium has been a miracle drug. So you really can't tell until you try.

I have found success on trileptal. It's the only med I take. I cannot take antidepressants. I have Seroquel to take but it makes me so tired I don't usually take it.

Trileptal levels me out without dulling me or killing my ability to feel happiness. It does make me tired but not enough to discontinue.

If you're worried about lithium try some other mood stabilizers first. Lithium is always there.

Thanks everyone