Question about meds

<font color="purple"> I am currently on 2.5 mgs Zyprexa(very low dose) Have been on 10mgs before which worked better therapeutically except for the sleepness.
Sometimes hard to know whether current dose does much good .

Previous to being shifted to a PD NOS i was dxed bipolar (Have had fair number of official dx and unofficial ie suggested in my notes over the years).

Something has been puzzling me somewhat . Some time ago i was taken of all meds for a while pdocs whim not my choice and hit depressive patch.
Pd doc said he was reluctant to prescribe me an AD because of possible negative effect on my moods hence he put me on low dose Zyprexa which i know has mood stabilising properties though more on the above as opposed to below threshold symptoms .

What puzzled me is why the concern about the effect of an AD on my moods when i am no longer seen as being bipolar.

As far as i know hesitancy to prescribe an AD on it's own is due to fear of 'switching' in people reckoned to be bipolar.

My moods tend to be reactive though not exclusively so and can change quite a lot . Would say they are more of a depressed come mixed nature- dysphoric rather than euphoric.

Tend to be prone to both ' Don't want to get out of bed' type depressions and what i call 'positively charged' depressions ie tense/uptight and vocal but in a negative/feisty kind of way with a fair bit of anxiety/irritability/ rejection sensitivity and paranoia thrown into the mix.



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Don't know teejai, you describe it as a "depressive patch" and I found this: "Antidepressants are not indicated for acute milder depressions at initial presentation" here: http://www.bap.org.uk/consensus/antidepressants.html Maybe the depression wasn't bad enough to look like it would warrant using an AD? If you have a PD, that would be of a "difference" from depression maybe along the lines of how bipolar is different and since they were closer to your old bipolar dx, maybe they were worried about giving it up that soon and sort of clung to it since they didn't have another clue yet?

> Some time ago i was taken of all meds for a while

It can be really very hard for p-docs to properly assess your symptoms if you are on a medication. How come? Because every medication has side-effects and it really can be impossible to disentangle medication side-effects from symptom presentation. It might be that your doc wanted to assess your presentation when you weren't on medication so that he would be better able to figure what medication you are most likely to benefit from.

When people start taking an anti-depressant (SSRI's in particular) they often report agitation, anxiety, difficulty sleeping etc. Sometimes people get so agitated and anxious that they become a risk to themself. It might be that your 'positively charged' depressions contra-indicate taking an SSRI. Might be that your doc is thinking that the initial stages of taking an SSRI might make things MUCH worse for you in that respect.

But... I don't know much about meds really. Could you ask him?