Why so many meds ?

I'm in Australia and I take Lithium and Fluoxetine (Prozac) as my regulars and Olanzapine (Zyprexa) and Clonanzapam as needed for agitation, psychotic like symptoms and anxiety. In the past I have been on up to six meds at the same time. Docs here in Aus don't get kickbacks but do seem happy to prescribe multiple meds. I am now fairly stable on my current regime although I do rapid cycle it is in much smaller waves so I can remain functional.

LOL actually I might have a drink twice a year, It's just never appealed to me much.

I have been med free close to a year now and altho its not all rainbows and puppies I have been able to white knuckle it and ride the waves.

I do have to say I took almost a year to prepare myself to go med free (yes my pdoc was ok with my doing this) building a huge tool box of coping skills, I made enormous lifestyle changes.

Im sure I might crash and burn and possible need a short term of a medication in the future, But I really saw no reason to ingest Chemicals daily if I still tended to cycle anyway.

I kinda wonder why somone would be put on an AP which suppresses dopamine and then also be on a amphetamine or Wellbutrin. That's just seems contradicting to me

Okay, to answer this question seriously, I was on one main med for years (just lamictal 200mg), and .5mg alprazolam three times a day as needed, and I only took it once at night to sleep.

And with the above I was fine. I had a pnp who never wanted to overmedicate me because she didn't want to squelch my creativity.

But, you know, things evolve. Psychotic breaks happen. Going over the deep end happens. I'm sure they happen to people in other countries too and not just the USA, and then your one mood stabilizer just isn't enough anymore, and they give you an antipsychotic in the hospital to get you back to reality.

And then you leave the hospital, still on your mood stabilizer (which isn't working anymore), and the antipsychotic they gave you.

And the plan was to ditch the antipsychotic after a few weeks, but then you start having hallucinations and terrifying paranoia attacks and whenever you try going off the antipsychotic (because it's seroquel and you hate it, and it's making you eat enormous bags of m&ms almost every night and jars of strawberry jam, and in total, after being on it for seven months, you've gained eleven pounds) you get suicidally and crazily depressed and do risky things involving alcohol and lots of clonazepam.

So you're stuck. In between doctors. Don't know what to do. On three meds: lamictal, seroquel, and clonazepam.

Besides being sucky, the seroquel isn't helping with your delusions/hallucinations/paranoia.

So... you see a new pdoc, who puts you on a new antipsychotic which will hopefully help, wants you off clonazepam, and replaces the clonazepam with vistaril and propranolol for your anxiety.

And after all of that crappiness you end up on lamictal, geodon, vistaril, propranolol, and a long clonazepam taper.

So, if I'm on ALL of these meds just because I live in the USA... okay.

Didn't mean to summarize my entire life story for the last seven months, but seriously. I'd rather NOT have terrifying paranoia attacks, see Tom Wait's face contorting and twisting into a nasty grin on the poster above our TV, see shimmering colors on walls, be stalked by a negative entity that WILL NOT leave me alone (hopefully it will leave me alone once the geodon kicks in) and actually feel it resting on my back and occasionally saying nasty things in my mind, see shadows moving in my living room, see designs in black and white vibrating on the wall in the bathroom (that actually looked kind of cool), see a painting on our wall breathing, hear keys jingling in the kitchen and thinking someone is in our apartment when the door is locked and there's no way anyone can be there, thinking that every person on the street is going to hurt my daughter and I when we go for walks.

And NO I'm not on illegal drugs.

And I love Tom Waits. Just not that poster of him. Lol.

My point is that it depends on the person and what they need.

Fingers - If one med is working out for you, that's fantastic.

But I don't think what country I live in has influenced what meds I'm on.

Sorry.

I think it also depends on the doctor. I've had several psychiatrists and some are more willing than others to write several prescriptions for me. My current one, not so much and I'm forced to deal with some issues through therapy.

I agree with Raspberry Torte. I am not on the meds I'm on because of where I live. I don't have a bad dr which some people would assume because of how many meds I'm on. It's just the way it is and how things are for now; I need 7 meds right now. 6 months from now I hope not to. But if I do I know that it will be because I NEED them and we have tried to eliminate some and it hasn't worked. This may be my life until a new med comes along that will work for me and that may be a while. For now we're trying to avoid Clozaril and anything that does that is valid in my view.

Also, I know for a fact my dr gets no kickbacks. For one thing her hospital doesn't allow drug reps to visit or even provide samples unless there is a patient who needs samples to start a med and then it is specifically requested. Also her hospital releases any relationship with drug companies annually on their website on the dr's information page.

So whatever is done is done to help me.

I was on 2 AD's for awhile but have been off both for a lil over 2 years now. I went off them w pdoc's blessing because therapy has helped me so much and i was tired of feeling so 'flat' all the time from the meds. The combination of meds though. At the time, definately saved my life and gave me hope to find a life worth living.

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I was on 12 meds I think about a year ago and I was so miserable and depressed and flat and numb. Now I'm only on 3 psych meds. Wellbutrin geodon and clonopin. I have bp1 and gad and I'm more prone to depression so i feel they are all necessary at this point in my life. Maybe someday I won't need a benzo or an antidepressant but honestly I would rather forgo the geodon and only use it when I'm having an episode because it makes losing weight so ridiculously hard.

As I may have stated elsewhere on this forum, I am on 5 psych meds because 4 weren't enough. Until recently my bipolar was extremely difficult to manage and so far, reducing the medication burden hasn't worked well, although I've been able to decrease the Geodon from 80 to 60 mg. With my pdoc's approval, I'm going to try another reduction in the Geodon soon and eventually go off of it, but I'm a long way from that...too much going on in my life right now. It would be nice to be on only one antipsychotic though---medical people who don't know me well always want to know why I'm on two. I think they're just afraid I'm really nuts under my calm exterior. LOL

I am on lamictal and lexapro. Also Zolpidem for sleep.

Thank you for all your responses.
It would appear that we all have different needs for meds according to the severity of our symptoms and variations in the condition. I would like to think that the doctors are trying their best to help us as much as they can. But at the end of the day we seem to
be just subjects for experimental cocktails which work for some but not others.
I seem to be one of the lucky ones where Olanzapine has worked well.
I am left in a state of semi low depression and although I am relaxed but have limited energy and sleep for twelve hours a night I am at a point where my mood swings have
disappeared so I live my life although not a very productive one in a fairly contented
state. There are times when I have considered trying another med to try to lift my
mood but the doctors seem afraid that it might produce mania.
I feel lucky that Olanzapine has put a stop to the symptoms I had before I was medicated but also fear full that by introducing another med might ruin what I have .
Most of the time I am quite happy to feel comfortably numb.

My original question was for those who are diagnosed with Bipolar 2 and not for those with more than one clinical diagnosis. This was not meant as a criticism of the mental
health system in other countries or a negative view on the number of meds that some of you take. If you need the meds for your symptoms then its good that there are
meds you can take.
Why so many meds ?
I recommend that you read all the responses to this thread as I feel that we have all touched on what the diagnosing , prescribing and other influences may be.

Thanks again for all your interesting responses, I feel that it all makes good food for thought and allows us all to freely express our opinions with out criticism or judgement .

Thanks Psyche central.

I hope you all feel better in the near future.

fingers1

I have multiple diagnoses, but am only taking lithium for bipolar 1. I have doxepin as needed for sleep, and sometimes have Xanax as needed for anxiety, but that's typically only for certain situations, etc, that I will talk to my psychiatrist about beforehand and he'll give me a very small amount.

I was on Zyprexa (Olanzapine) before, and I absolutely hated it. I think that if you want to try something else, lithium works really well for me, and it's the only thing that I've found that works. And it prevents me from being manic and keeps me level most of the time. So it works for both sides of the bipolar spectrum (in regards to mood swings).

I also have the same question. I was discussing it with a friend at a cafe about a year ago that has depression and I sent him an interesting post from here and was also curious about this.I'm from south Europe having Depakine and Lamictal for bipolar 1 quit zyprexa five years ago and generally function well. I believe this thing exists due to many reasons mentioned above and not only but it's not necessarily bad.