Articles Index - page 3
Name That Episode! Three Mixed-Up Months
What do you call an episode that has elements of hypomania but is characterized by exhaustion at the end of each day? Part of the 'I'm Bipolar' series.
Medicating Upward
From bipolar depression upward toward positive stability via medications - five medication changes in eight weeks - here is the story week by week of the changes and their results.
Changes Without Change
The author recaps her struggle with bipolar depression and medications over the last two years. Part of the 'I'm Bipolar?' series that began the day of diagnosis.
Struggles Continue
More serious medication issues have arisen in the author's battle to find combination of prescription drugs that will stabilize her mood in a good place and allow her to lose the weight gained over the years from Prozac.
Plugging Energy Drains
Plugging energy drains is another key to controlling depression. Here's one blue-ribbon method.
Serzone Key Medication for My Bipolar Depression?
The diet medication Ionamin was a disaster, but Serzone may be the key to defeating a lasting bipolar depression!
Sidelined from Exercise
Part 13 in a series tracking one person's life after being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Events and injury sidetrack fitness goals as medication juggling continues.
Setting Fitness Goals
In this installment of the series tracking life since diagnosis, the author joins a fitness program in her continuing struggle to lose weight.
Alone in the House on New Meds
After living with my mother for almost 9 years, I found myself alone in the house while she recovered from surgery just at the time I had a major medication change. In addition to Seroquel I began taking Cymbalta, a new drug for me. The results were remarkable!
Crying for the Birds
Not everything that hurts a lot is a life event. It can be something that seems small to others - when it is more important to you than anyone else realizes.
Jekyll and Hide - An Allegory
Imagine the opposite of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In our story, Dr. Grace Jekyll, a pharmacist, is cheerful, productive and pleasant at work, but by night she becomes a pathetic, depressed and miserable shadow of herself - Ms. Hide. What can be causing this terrible change to occur?
All Bent Out of Shape
When you care about something as passionately as I cared about the 2004 United States Presidential election, and it doesn't go the way you wanted it to - and you have a mental illness along with fibromyalgia - a lot more can go wrong that you might think.
Going Off Meds
The second phase of dropping my bipolar medications was to taper off Celexa, an SSRI antidepressant. This can be problematic, but thanks to my friend Kim's timely suggestion, I spent the days of tapering thinking about something other than myself for a change, and loving it - or rather, them. Page 1 of 2
Going Off Meds
From June to late August of 2005 I tapered off all of my bipolar disorder medications - Zyprexa, Topamax, Trazodone, Prozac / Celexa, Ativan, Gabitril and Wellbutrin. This is the first of three articles telling why I decided to do this and how the process unfolded through an episode of agitated depression coupled with serious back pain.
Medications in Bipolar Disorder: Trial and Error
Few changes occurred in 2001, but in 2002 pain medication was added for worsening fibromyalgia and Lexapro was tried. This medication may work well for some but it was trouble for me!
Medications in Bipolar Disorder: Trial and Error
From Lexapro to Celexa to Depakote to Trileptal to more and more ... the twin demons of depression and weight just refuse to go away.
Going Off Medications
I had just 3 medications left to get out of my system - Wellbutrin, Gabitril and Ativan - generic name Lorazepam. So far the process hadn't been too difficult, but when I cut my Ativan dose down, it was like being run over by a truck.
Medication Roller Coaster
In this segment of the author's story since being diagnosed with manic depression in 1999, she reports on the effects of a medication combination that initially produced hypomania.
Medications in Bipolar Disorder: Trial and Error
Diagnosis of bipolar disorder in May 1999 brought radical changes to this patient's medication regimen. Antidepressants were out; mood stabilizers were in. Changes were frequent. Seroquel was too strong. Zyprexa caused swelling. Trial and error was the rule.
Want Some Pain With Your Stress?
Medication changes. Mom got embolisms in her toes and required more surgery. Stress. Pain. Even though I was finally sleeping well on Seroquel, it wasn't enough to cope with the events of December 2005 and January 2006.
Changing thoughts on a bad evening:
I hadn't felt well all day, and after work I'd come home to the same chaos of house and garden that has been plaguing me - and getting steadily worse - for months. The two week heat wave had finally broken; the evening was deliciously cool and misty - paradise for someone with more than 600 plants yet to plant. But I was worn out and in pain, so instead of planting I sat down with my journal - and an ice pack on my back - and began to write...
From the Storms, Cast Up On the Shore
A memory triggered led me through a brief retrospective of my bipolar life - most of it undiagnosed - from high school through multiple colleges and jobs - from therapists and lovers to withdrawal and finally to today.
What's Up, Doc?
In this installment of Marcia's 'I'm Bipolar' series, she takes a sometimes pungent look at what's been going on in her life - physical, mental, medicinal and avocational - with the help of Bugs Bunny, Tom Lehrer and a mere fraction of the botanical names that will grace her garden this year.
As Different as Night and Day
Normal during the work day, depressed at all other times - it doesn't make sense. Or does it? It took me a long, long time to figure it out. Having to help put on a large charity event didn't make it any easier. What a year it has been!