[pirilin]

At the risk of not being explicit enough, I'll ask the questions.

Why are we taking so many meds?.
I see fellow BPers on 5,6,even 7 medications.
I was diagnosed 6 yrs ago and now is when I'm going to start riding
the meds rollercoaster ride.
I'm on 5 meds now, but tapering off two. Lamictal and Trazodone.
In a perfect world I would be off the xanax too. I'm down to .5mg
But at this point cutting down to .25mg is a beocht. No sleep.
I will remain on Lithium, Remeron and will try Wellbutrin. 3 Meds.
I see some of us taking 3 mood stabilisers. 2 ADs, sometimes 3.

Is it that we are more afraid of letting go than trying new meds?.
Or specific conditions require that many meds.

[Icare dixit]

Gotta try them all, you know. Made a bucket list, starting from the least to the most toxic.

Seriously, it might be impatience together with a very long time it takes to up and lowers doses to therapeutic levels and back.

If there are no serious side-effects, to get a clear picture of whether meds work or not you often have wait through a few episodes. It just takes far too long to do all this by trail-and-error. Subdivisions of BP and other psychotic disorders—based purely on biochemical and genetic factors—should be made to be able to research efficacy.

Now we are far too much just means for naturalistic, bad/flawed experimentation. Just scientifically flawed. The knowledge about differences between people with BP might be there, but not the time and scientific rigour needed for reliable experiments, thus better treatment.

Do experiments very well and just once, now really, already!

[gina_re]

You know I was thinking about this very question this week. I never thought I would be up to five medications when I was stable for a few years on just one. I talked to my pdoc from my last visit on Monday about coming off of the Effexor because I feel no need for it. I got the same response from when I was in PHP in November, since I'm in an acute episode, they don't want to take anything out to make things worse. So I was thinking about what each one is for, and why do I now take them? This is the order in which I received them..

Trileptal....mood swings, mostly anger and dysphoric hypomania and depression
Effexor....bad depression, but that was after gaining too much weight from Paxil and the price increase from Pristiq which I think both worked better anyway
Wellbutrin...energy, since Trileptal made me groggy and I also had concentration issues
Lamictal...added while in PHP for the swings between hypomania and depression through the year (may be considered rapid cycling)
Restoril...my sleep issues/insomnia got worse and I needed a little more help..unfortunately I think I may be dependent on it since I tried to sleep without it recently
I think everything went out of wack after my grandmother passed a couple of years ago. She was my stabilty, and the best "med" I ever had

My pdoc keeps adding meds because he thinks that some meds are more effective when they interact with each other. I'm not so sure about that, but I'm giving that a shot because he may be right. Though, I only started taking meds in August after years of being in denial about BP.

I'm definitely not afraid of letting go, though. In fact, I want to get off Latuda after reading this: http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...sychotics.html (Latuda also doesn't do anything for my depression when it's at a low dose. But when the dose is too high, I sleep all day. There's no happy medium.) I also want to get off Lexapro unless my pdoc is willing to increase my dosage again... because I feel 5mg is sort of pointless.

I'm willing to try new meds, but ideally I'd like to take as few as possible. If I could get away with only taking Lamictal (for example), then I would do that.

[DelusionsDaily]

I am only on two medications and i have an appointment with NP to discuss coming off at least Tegretol, since i dont have the $ for a second opinion that she wants me to get to come off both. We'll see. She'll be hard pressed to to get on more than two.

[venusss]

Somebody once explained to me that some doctors are afraid to take patients OFF meds so they just pile on new ones when a bad episode occurs.

And it seems with some it's taking meds for side effects of the med that was added to counter side effects of med for side effects of the other med for side effects of the first med.

[Icare dixit]

Meds interacting (at a biochemical level) can hardly be seen as good. There are many contraindications for pretty much all meds, because of it.

It makes the experimentation only far more difficult (also just having many meds taken together, regardless chemical interactions).

[raspberrytorte]

I don't want to be on all the meds I'm on right now. Buspirone and gabapentin are both for my anxiety, but I don't feel buspirone is even doing anything and gabapentin isn't doing enough. So, I'd like to not be on buspirone since it's worthless for me.

Yeah, the reasons seem to be any or all of the following:
*adding because a given med doesn't take care of all problematic symptoms
*to counteract side effects
*a belief in synergistic effect
*being afraid to take something out of the mix.
And in some cases, possibly just laziness.

I'm lucky that my provider is of the mindset of working with as few as needed to accomplish the task. (And if a dose has to be increased for a time, it's not just left there for no reason.)

I've got 4, one being PRN. No real duplicate purposes. Dosages adjusted as appropriate to situation.

Edited to add... She is a PMHNP (psych nurse practitioner), doing both my meds and therapy. I think it's a good combo because I'm not just some 5-15 minute face. She knows directly what's going on with me.

[HALLIEBETH87]

I'm on six currently. Apparently they all work for different dxs I have

[seoultous]

I take a lot of meds sometimes. But, I don't think I am taking more than I need.

I have to take my lamictal and abilify to stay sane. If I want to sleep, I need my clonazepam. I could probably stop there and be ok.

Then there is Vitamin D; Xanax for breakthrough anxiety (I take like 5 a year); and Ritalin for depression brought on by SAD.

All seem to be playing well together because I detect no side effects and I feel good.

[HALLIEBETH87]

Originally Posted by HALLIEBETH87

I'm on six currently. Apparently they all work for different dxs I have

Lamictal for mood, gabapentin and Ativan for anxiety, pristiq for depression, Latuda for psychosis and Trazadone for sleep.

[gina_re]

Oh yeah vitamin D was just added to the mix since bloodwork indicated it was low...which I figured. I don't make the greatest food choices and I stay indoors most of the time...