Posted by Mr Cushing on November 29, 2002, at 12:58:29
In reply to Trileptal experiences?, posted by Krysti on November 27, 2002, at 13:10:37
Hey Krysti, K, I've got an interesting story for you about this drug and Tegretol. I ran into one of my Dad's old buddies yesterday and he had heard that I was DX'd with being Bi-Polar. Anyways, I've always heard stories from my Dad about how his friend was always in and out of the hospital and how sometimes he would do great for months on end, and then finally slip off.Anyways, he told me yesterday that he's tried a number of mood stabilizers. The first was Lithium, which he said he had to take for like 10-15 years because there was nothing else really out there at the time to help him. He said that this drug was like a monster if you had to take a high dose of it. Then when Depakote became available, he made the switch over to that which he took for about 15-20 years. He said that this is the drug that he continuously stopped taking because he was never really big on working out or eating right and he found that no matter how hard he tried, his weight would really start to bounce up high on this drug. It would get to the point where he felt so horrible about his weight that he would quit the drug for a bit to get the weight off. Most of the times when he quit the drug, he would go into a really high manic episode or a really deep depression and have to be hospitalized. So anyways, the last time he needed to be hospitalized was five years ago. Since then, it's almost like he's been reborn. He said that the last time he went into the hospital, the Doctors there put him on Tegretol just to see what would happen. He said that once he got past the side effects of this medication it was like a miracle drug for him. He said that the side effects were very minimal compared with the Lithium that he used to have to take. He also said that not only did Tegretol do the trick to keep him from going into either a manic or depressive episode, he said that when he was around the middle of the spectrum (like the normal phase) he still found that the drug helped him quite a bit. Now, about a year ago, he made the switch over to Trileptal just to see what happened. He said that this is essentially the Tegretol control with next to no side effects. That this has been the happiest he's been in about a long as he can remember, and for once, out of like the 40 something years that he's been dealing with this disease, that he feels almost like he doesn't have it. All he has to do is remember to take his medication in the morning and at night and things are absolutely great.
He also told me that he used to have insomnia really bad for years and years. That for a few decades he would take prescribed sleeping pills at night to give him the restorative sleep that he needed. Anyways, with Trileptal, after taking his night time dose, he just falls asleep like a baby and usually doesn't have any problems waking up in the morning.
Anyways, thought you would find that interesting. If my weight keeps jumping up on Depakote (I'm giving it another 15lbs) then I'm actually going to make the switch over to Trileptal myself. I just want to give every one of my medications a fair shot to work and it's only been about a month on Depakote and I'm still trying to get the Effexor out of my system.
poster:Mr Cushing
thread:129599
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021127/msgs/129912.html