[Faltering]

I noticed many people here are taking several meds. Is this common for those diagnosed with bipolar disorder? Now I feel weird for only being on one med at a time.

Originally Posted by Faltering

I noticed many people here are taking several meds. Is this common for those diagnosed with bipolar disorder? Now I feel weird for only being on one med at a time.

I’m on two bipolar meds and one anxiety med. Pretty stable, now.

Don’t feel weird. I think it’s weird to list every .25mg PRN med.

[~Christina]

Many people need multiple meds to find stability.

[Tucson]

[Deleted Post]

[BeyondtheRainbow]

If you are fortunate enough to only need one or two meds that's wonderful. Sometimes it takes several meds to get the mood stabilized. Sometimes there are meds for multiple disorders (ie I'm on meds for anxiety and PTSD along with bipolar). And sometimes meds just don't work well and it takes time to find what does work and then to adjust things so that the minimal meds are taken.

For example I've been on clozapine 18 months. We're still trying to find a dose that keeps me stable but isn't too much. We were close and then tried to go lower it and it got worse. So the dose went way up. Eventually I'll get it lower again and when I'm stable the plan is to get off topimirate which only helps me sleep some and over a 2 year taper clonazepam.

Just because my list seems unusual to some people doesn't mean it isn't right for me and that it has been arrived at with years of work with an excellent psychiatrist who has been incredibly patient as med after med did not work or had dangerous side effects. I tried over 70 meds in countless combinations to get here and I'm proud of it because sticking it out was one of the hardest things I've had to do.

Everyone is different and if you need .25 mg of a med (which doesn't even make sense given that some meds .25 mg is a HUGE dose) so you can function then by all means count that as one of your meds. Maybe someday someone will see that and think that it might benefit them and you'll have helped someone.

Originally Posted by ~Christina

Many people need multiple meds to find stability.

Whilst hospitalized, that can be true.

No one requiring great numbers and dosages of drugs to require stability should be outside the confines of a hospital or other institution.

My opinion in the ‘been there, done that’ way of thinking.

That ‘quality of life’ bugger keeps buggering and, personally, I would rather waver a little than to feel the numbness of lithium, again.

[UpDownAround]

Lamictal is my mood stabilizer. But I tend to be in a low key funk when I am not having an up or down episode, so wellbutrin is to move the needle to a better spot. I have an attention deficit component in there; straterra helps. Saphris is a really low dose to help me sleep.

[~Christina]

Not everyone has the luxury nor wants to be able to " waver "

[SorryShaped]

I'm on 2 different extended release anti-seizure mood stabilizers, an atypical antipsychotic for sleep, thyroid hormones (hypo), multivitamin, melatonin, and when needed muscle relaxer (I use it sparingly and only when my pain level is tremendous. Opiates don't work on me. Nothing, not even morphine cuts my severe neck pain from degenerated disks, but small dose muscle relaxer helps.). I also use botanicals daily that help as well with PTSD and mildly with depression and anxiety, legal stuff and no, it's not pot. The plants in me, not everyone, took away my need for the nightmare medicine, which I only found out about within the last year. I also exercise like mad.
Even with all this, my mood is only mostly stable 5 of 7 days, but it's much moreso when I workout more.

[Guiness187055]

Originally Posted by ciderguy

Whilst hospitalized, that can be true.

No one requiring great numbers and dosages of drugs to require stability should be outside the confines of a hospital or other institution.

My opinion in the ‘been there, done that’ way of thinking.

That ‘quality of life’ bugger keeps buggering and, personally, I would rather waver a little than to feel the numbness of lithium, again.

That is far from the truth. Whether right or wrong most bipolars are on an antidepressant, mood stabilizer, anti psychotic and a prn for anxiety and possibly sleep. Many of us function just fine and do not need to be in the hospital for these meds to be administered.

I'm on 3. My mom was on 5 or 6 and it wasn't working.

[Victoria'smom]

I've been on 6 before now I'm on 2. I'm not stable but close enough.

[NatsukiKuga]

Originally Posted by key tones

I'm on 3. My mom was on 5 or 6 and it wasn't working.

And then a med may be working just fine right now, but it might poop out on you later, and then you have to re-jigger the whole cocktail.

Imo the number of meds you're on isn't very a good index of how bad off you are. Neither the dosages. It's just a list of what you happen to be working with right now.

Sticking to a prescribed regimen of medications simple: you follow the dosage instructions. When I was hospitalized I’m certain that I went through the 70+ medication trial-and-error as well. And, yes, I had then - as I have now - multiple mental disorders... just much worse then. Then, I was unable to function.

Function and Stability. If I am unable to function - if I cannot feed myself, if I cannot bathe or keep my bed from being soiled, if I cannot speak - then I need help and often the help of medications, in droves. But if stability comes only with continuous adjustments of the struts and abutments then I’m only the Biblical structure with the feet of clay. One dram of Melancholy and I may take a great fall. One dram of Melancholy removed and I may fly.

I don’t take any doctor’s advice without question. I only begin new medications grudgingly and, if I find that they’re actually detrimental, I stop them. I’ll actually stop if I’m simply pissed off.

Last year, after having nine pain diagnoses for fourteen years and being treated with large amounts of opiates and opioids, I was pissed at the idea of visiting a pain clinic every month. Cold-turkey withdrawal from an 80mg OxyContin habit really wasn’t that difficult. I doubt that ditching a .5mg PRN alprazolam script would be difficult.

Hitching my wagon to a minimalist pharmaceutical pdoc’s horse has helped, too. I feel, now, as if my brain had been dulled for years upon years and that cognition only returned as drugs were minimalised, putting me in that most perfect of all position: coping.

When we have tasted the bile and walked and fell upon the razor of symptoms of mental illnesses we may enter the “there is nothing that I nor anyone can do” state. And some, those driven insane by relentless and devouring symptoms and situations, those finding permanent homes in the dank and pissy rooms of institutions, those, those, are never given a chance to cope.

**** stabilization. I’ll take coping - the same road that my friends and neighbors walk - any day over a drug-hazed stability.

[*Laurie*]

ciderguy, WTH??????

I've been on as many as 6 meds at a time. I hated having to be on them, but I was coming apart without meds.

I'm on 4 now. Rather low doses, and frankly I think I would do well on higher doses, but I'm so tired of being medicated. I work VERY hard at grounding myself, breathing, meditating, and so on. But sometimes...it's just all too much, having to cope. Just too much.

Originally Posted by ~Christina

Not everyone has the luxury nor wants to be able to " waver "

So, you think lithium the answer for all who’ve not the luxury or desire to want to live a cognitive life? That numbed up/dumbed up is more beneficial in dealing with other non-mental issues?

Christ. Have you ever taken lithium?

Wavering. No havering. I’ll tell you now that grown men cry and Irish girls are pretty.

[Tucson]

I wish I can just be on an AD and AP for depression and to keep mania in check. Some APs actually have antidepressant properties. However, being able to use just two meds is not the case with me. I am on a mood stabilizer to help make me stable by minimizing the frequency of mood swings. This is important. I also have significant problems with sometimes debilitating anxiety. So I am taking something for that. All APs make my hands shake, much of the time allot. I cannot function well in my life this way. So I may need to go back to a med that helps with this problem. In the past, I sometimes needed two ADs to simply function. I want to try to come off the MS to see what happens. However if I am to go back to work, I need to be functioning 100% with ideally no lapses from work and without shaking hands. We shall see.

I think it should be a goal for a person with an illness to function on a minimal amount of medication. Maybe this should be periodically reassessed for this reason. Sometimes I think I should start all over with my meds to find a combination that uses the minimal amount of meds. I do want this to happen. But the first priority is for me to functiin well enough to manage my life which will include work. Keep in mind that there is reason I am on SSDI disability for me being BP. IMO the truth is that the higher functioning BPers can function well on just a few meds. Not all of us are that fortunate.

[Row Jimmy]

I take lithium and Celexa. They don't bother me so why not? I'd prefer to avoid an anti psychotic but my p-doc isn't much of a meds guy and he is more or less "hands off" thus I probably won't face that concern.

Personally, I think the key to avoiding (or minimizing) medication is to own my own maintenance. I understand the need for medication, but we all should work outside of medicine to stay healthy and even-keeled. I relapse here and there but I know that it's part of the game. It will be a lifetime of mindfulness.

[Tucson]

I think Row Jimmy is making sense.

Originally Posted by *Laurie*

ciderguy, WTH??????

I've been on as many as 6 meds at a time. I hated having to be on them, but I was coming apart without meds.

I'm on 4 now. Rather low doses, and frankly I think I would do well on higher doses, but I'm so tired of being medicated. I work VERY hard at grounding myself, breathing, meditating, and so on. But sometimes...it's just all too much, having to cope. Just too much.

Laurie (you *got* my Dr. Bronner reference?),

Oh, yes - whilst hospitalized (or otherwise institutionalized, e.g., mental ward in nursing home) I’m certain that I was on dozens of medications simultaneously; some I recall, some not. ‘Twas ECT that saved me.

Yes, three, now, here. Low dose AD, higher dose AP and alprazolam. Many, many other heart meds, insulin, etc. Throwing maximum amounts of gabapentin at neuropathy but tomorrow I start Lyrica.

Yes, tired of being medicated. I do the breathing stuff but I don’t know what meditation *means.* Contemplative prayer? I don’t, now, practice prayer. What do you meditate upon?

Too much to cope? I had an epiphany during my opioid withdrawal. A manic epiphany, yes, certainly. If I could make it through that and if I could learn to live with pain then I could recognise and (with exercises made on the fly) life through the horrors of my mind. In my mind. With minimum drugs.

That’s my WTH/WTF? answer at the moment. I’m more than my diseases and disorders. I’m more than my medications. So are we all.

Originally Posted by Row Jimmy

I take lithium and Celexa. They don't bother me so why not? I'd prefer to avoid an anti psychotic but my p-doc isn't much of a meds guy and he is more or less "hands off" thus I probably won't face that concern.

Personally, I think the key to avoiding (or minimizing) medication is to own my own maintenance. I understand the need for medication, but we all should work outside of medicine to stay healthy and even-keeled. I relapse here and there but I know that it's part of the game. It will be a lifetime of mindfulness.

I refuse the dulled nature that I experienced under lithium. But I don’t know of a better MS.

I’m in complete agreement with your second paragraph. I’ll make the physical/mental symptom analogy once again: if I begin to have chest pain and think, “it will go away,” and fail to pop a nitro tab and I begin to have another heart attack and my defibrillator is working to save me and I think, “it will go away” and I die, I’m responsible for my death because I was too effing stupid to call 911.

We recognise our mental symptoms, too. But sometimes we’re too effing stupid to attempt to alert ourselves, our internal 911.

[scatterbrained04]

I think most are on more than one, but if you can find stability on just one then that is great.

I'm on 2 bipolar meds and one for anxiety. A mood stabilizer wasn't enough for depression, so had to add Latuda. I try to be on as few meds on as low dosages as I can get away with to be stable. Occasionally I'll throw an in AP to knock out a mixed episode for about a month then drop it like a hot potato.

[SorryShaped]

Originally Posted by scatterbrained04

I think most are on more than one, but if you can find stability on just one then that is great.

I'm on 2 bipolar meds and one for anxiety. A mood stabilizer wasn't enough for depression, so had to add Latuda. I try to be on as few meds on as low dosages as I can get away with to be stable. Occasionally I'll throw an in AP to knock out a mixed episode for about a month then drop it like a hot potato.

Latuda dang near killed me. I lost nearly everything I did during that time just from the confusion. A lot of people do great on it though. I've had the pleasure to meet with Dr Terrence Ketter several times, and he's guy that gave the go-ahead for Latuda's approval through the FDA and lots of other meds too. He's the world's leading bipolar research scientist /doctor

[WildcatVet]

If it works for you that's wonderful! Everyone is different in their reaction to meds, some people have co-morbid disorders and need more than one, and there's no reason to feel weird about what's right for YOU.
Considering how so many people kvetch about how over medicated they are and how many meds they have to take.... you should consider yourself lucky!

[SorryShaped]

Originally Posted by WildcatVet

If it works for you that's wonderful! Everyone is different in their reaction to meds, some people have co-morbid disorders and need more than one, and there's no reason to feel weird about what's right for YOU.
Considering how so many people kvetch about how over medicated they are and how many meds they have to take.... you should consider yourself lucky!

Succinctly put