Non Ethical Prescribing

I see an issue where that has been ongoing the last 15 years. Bipolars don't seem to be stabilized anymore. In the old days many were on lithium which usually worked quite well, some don't tolerate it and some get toxic. But the main thing was still getting mood swings under control. These days they might instead add a few pretty weak epilepsy meds as stabilizers. Sometimes docs even think all in that class are equally strong when in fact some basically have almost no stabilizing effect at all.

Stronger stabilizers could be tegretol and depakote, weak ones topamax and neurontin. Even with the stronger you might have to be on more than one.

Doctors solve this these days by adding an antipsychotic med. For mood swings. But not really. For the effects of mood swings. Justified sometimes but IMO not always. Those meds come with quite harsh side effects, the newer ones they usually want to prescribe come with a strong disturbance in handling carb and sugar.

And yea they do hand them out like candy at times, I am not even bipolar and still tried two antipsychotics. (Because it was believed they would take away bad thoughts, fat chance they did that!) And now they prescribe them for sleep. I am somewhat worried.

Options... could be, try a stronger mood stabilizer... take AP as needed (if that would work)... or get on a AP diet (described by my old doc as quite close to Atkins, since even with the med, processing fat and protein is near normal, processing carb is VERY disturbed).

Wish you luck.

My shrink said I should try Abilify as augmentation for depression. But I also just got a report that my blood sugar is too high. Doesn't that mean that I shouldn't get near something that might make my blood sugar even worse? And it lowers metabolism and increases hunger. Was I told this? No. Did he know about these concerns of mine before. Yes.

I just went off it AMA. I texted him telling him why. His explanation was that those things only happen at higher doses…...

What bothers me is that many doctors write off these concerns as "vanity" too.

Serious weight gain is a health issue and also affects energy, exercise, and therefore mood. Plus it leads to other conditions. So how could anyone really think of it as a question of "vanity"? And the blood sugar issue leading to diabetes????

I hate this. I was 111 pounds before I started any psych med, and now 9 years later, I am almost 300 pounds. It is totally not fair. I also have PCOS which causes insulin resistance, i.e. pre diabetes, and weight gain. My husband doesn't even blame me for being overweight. Doctors just say "just lose weight" and it will get better. But they are the ones prescribing the meds that make my appetite go up and my weight go up! Also I just learned that prozac can mess with your blood sugar levels! I'm like a few years away from diabetes and this is how they treat me?

I feel like they are taking you apart and treat you piece by piece. I have many times told docs they cannot prescribe a certain med because it is a lupus trigger and I don't wanna die and they treat me like we prescribe the same stuff if you are healthy or not, deal with it. It's not so bad. And your other illness is not OUR problem!!!!

I always research a medication before I even try it. but that is just me and my personality. Most of the time in the past when I was on numerous psych meds I would be the one to actually bring up a possible med to try.

It works for my pdoc and I . Also a great place to check on medication interactions is your pharmacist, they have loads of info , just have to ask them.