Re: Going Off Meds - Possible Misdiagnosis Of Bipolar

Hi,
I'm sorry you aren't feeling well. Did you get your lithium blood levels drawn pretty regularly? It would have been interesting to know how toxic you were and when all this started. It's often easy to look at a list of symptoms and and self diagnose a problem, but a simple blood test could have alarmed your doctors and started the proper treatment. There could have been any number of things going on, but it certainly looks like the lithium was the culprit if you are feeling so much better. That is of course unless you feeling great because you are slowly swinging out into mania. I usually have the insight to tell I'm about to swing and sometimes like to just ignore it because it feels really good :)

Were you taking the lithium in addition to the Seroquel, Klonopin and Gabapentin all this time? That's a decent sized cocktail if so. It may have all been building up inside of you for awhile and everything was making you sick.

Do you have a primary care doctor or internist in addition to your psychiatrist that can run a few test on you? Maybe if you hurry you could get in today or next week before the new year holiday. I would maybe get a lipid panel as well as your hepatic (liver) labs drawn. They could also do urine to make sure you kidneys are ok.

I would do all of this and I would make sure I found a doctor who I liked. I just started a relationship with a new primary care doctor and I was very scared to disclose my bipolar history because of the stigma. I decided to just come right out and say it and see what he said. He actually had a more friendly manner about it than my psychiatrist! We talked for several minutes about my mental health before we started my physical.

I imagine you and your wife have some friends who can recommend a good primary care doc in the event that you don't have one or are not comfortable with the treatment team you have now. You sound like you are just on the recovery side of crisis. You were very ill just a few days ago and are now facing a back surgery in the next 30-60 days. I would just try and take a breath and try and work out one little issue each day. Sometimes I have to focus on just taking a walk one day and working hard to get my body in a rhythm to sleep even if it's only for 5 or 6 hours. Good sleep 3 days in a row can totally change our perspective on everything! I know it's the holidays but I would try and avoid alcohol as it will aggravate your sleep. It will put you into a deeper stage 3 delta sleep quickly but you will wake up 2 or 3 hour later. You feel jittery and anxious because your body wants that booze out. It can lead to sleep maintenance insomnia where you just can't stay asleep to get a full nights rest which can really push the accelerator down on your anxiety and get everything out of control.

Clarity and focus come when he get our bodies in shape. That doesn't mean we have to be perfectly fit or eat a really restrictive diet it just means we need to find a little balance spiritually, physically and mentally. Just a 30 minute walk with a loved one or a pet or even in solitude can help with energy and sleep. Try walking with some mediation music if you have an ipod. You can get some meditation podcasts for free from itunes.

I wouldn't worry too much about a diagnosis of bipolar. "Bipolar" is just a road map for the docs. Honestly that stuff seems to just follow us around when professionals read our charts and are looking for ways to treat us. They see our histories and jump to conclusions, many of which may be accurate...some of them are completely inaccurate.

Medicine is a business and doctors are looking for the most effective ways to get the patient "stable" as quickly as possible. That is the service they are trained to offer. (Some of them very poorly) Very few docs are trained to help people achieve full wellness. Total optimal health with a zest for life. If we don't like how we feel we certainly have the right to take our money/insurance somewhere else if we can afford to. They in turn have the right to treat us however they see fit. This might include someone trying to shove you right back on your lithium. In that case you might exercise your right to find a new doc.

Doctors and therapist use to tell me all the time "trying to prove to us that you aren't bipolar is a very common and persistent symptom in most people with this illness..." I got slapped with that so much I just quit resisting and decided I'm more than a word on a chart or a description of symptoms someone wrote in a textbook years ago.

If you go to your psychiatrist or seek a new one I would ask him/her if you could try anticonvulsants instead. Lamictal (lamotrigine) is FDA approved for maintenance of Bipolar disorder and I did very well on Trileptal (oxcarbazepine) for years. Maybe swap one of those for your lithium and quickly try and taper some of the other drugs out of the cocktail. Seroquel is suppose to be good for sleep so I wonder how you would do on Lamictal for mood stabilization, Seroquel for sleep/anxiety and Klonopin just for emergencies like panic attacks.

You will be ok. Always remember that. It's always ok! Just breath. I hope you have a good holiday and I'm sure as a few people wake up this morning you will get some good responses. I just happened to have rolled over and felt chipper enough to put on a coffee pot at 4:00am.

Bipolar II
Lamictal 100, Topamax 50, Risperdal 0.5, Cal/Mag with D3, Fish Oil, High Potency Multi

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass

Re: Going Off Meds - Possible Misdiagnosis Of Bipolar

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