What courage you have to keep fighting! I appauld you for hanging in there for 4 years, working a demanding job, and continuing to seek treatment.

I wholeheartedly agree that meds are a BIG part of how we get/stay well. It's just that I have been permanently injured, and my life will likely be cut short, because big pharma industry decided profits over safety. But enough about that!

You deserve a doctor who is as thoughtful and caring as you obviously are. Hooray for you that you have begun a new search, as this one clearly doesn't have what it takes to help.

As for talk therapy, I wonder if it's just me who seems to have better talk therapy from LCSW's or other pros with less advanced degrees...the psychiatrists (necessary for meds I know) have helped little (hurt often) and the further "down the ladder", the better the talk therapy, it seems. ?

Best of everything to you, Billyb. and everyone.

As soon as the Symbyax is out of my System we're going to start the MAOI Emsam patch at 6mg. I was on the patch about 8 months ago.I was feeling the best I had in a while and we made the mistake of raising the dose to the 9mg patch. I starting feeling poorly again and we lowered to the 6mg patch to no avail. I was very agitated and suffering from insomnia. This is when he diagnosed me with typeII.

I am truly hoping that the Emsam in combo with both Depakote and Lithium will be the answer. I have had no Hypomania since the Depakote was initially added but I have been severely depressed since that short period of relief I had on the 6mg Emsam patch. This plan makes some sense to me as I've been on so many other anti-depressants that didn't work it's unreal. Thanks for listening and I wish you all the best.

Please be aware that Lamictil does have a serious side effect in a small % of people (usually children), but this needs to be discussed with your doctor should you consider raising that and ditching of the other meds. In which case you do so, I would keep a journal on your thoughts and feelings etc.

Hopefully, you have someone dear to you that is a supporter and can help you through this.

Best of Luck

A few more things that I should mention, while I am not a healthcare professional, I do think that there is a new direction for BP2 patients to be treated with anticonvulsants (Lamictil, Lithium) etc. The tendency seems that P Docs are not using anidepressants in BP2 patients if they are trully BP2. This is often difficult to diagnose, but there are specific indicators that your doctor may have missed, hence why it took so long to get it diagnosed. I think the best thing you can do is to find a new doctor who will look at your old records (all of them) and evaluate a treatmemt plan to get you feeling better. The MAOI(antidepressant) he has you on is so restrictive with diet and dangerous in my opinion. Thankfully he took you off the Symbyax (antidepressant). I wish that he would have raised your Lamictil slowly to see if it alone would improve your state over a few weeks. Fire your doctor once you find a new one! I suggest you go with a large group practice as physicians psychiatrists should consult one another when they are not having any success with a patient.

You deserve to be happy and healthy. Please read this link and maybe this will help guide you.

Good luck and stay positive.

http://www.webmd.com/bipolardisorder/news/20070315/ antidepressants-risky-for-biopolar-disorder

ECT was a wonderful experience for me. It set me free from mood swings and meds for about 10 years. It was not bad, I was well treated, and suffered no memory loss. They sedate you well so there is no pain or injury. It is a great thing to consider if meds aren't working out. I'd be willing to have it again if the lamictal (no side effects!!!) doesn't work out in the long run.

I was thinking that the medication was inducing the anxiety, but the doctor thinks that this is probably medication induced hypomania. I had experienced a similar (but not extreme) hypomania years earlier when I was taking wellbutrin and effexor simultaneously. That doctor added depakote, which seemed to bring it back down.

At this point, my doctor is trying to tease apart the pre-existing conditions, the medication efficacy, and the side effects. It's incredibly frustrating. I definitely feel your pain in dealing with this *stuff*.

I'll let you all know how the treatment goes. Right now the doctor recommends decreasing to 100mg lamictal for a week, and if that doesn't reduce the agitation, racing thoughts, and anxiety, to go off it completely. Then it's back to square one.

I read in your post that you have had ECT and you had a positive experience. I to have had a positive experience with the ECT, however I have had memory problems but nothing too bad. My question is how long did you get them? I have had different series and am now getting them every three weeks. My depression got bad a couple of months ago and my doc asked if I would be willing to go from getting them once a month to every other week and I agreed. My next one is in three weeks now. I'm not on a mood stabalizer right now, she just tried me on depakote but I couldn't handle it. I have been on so many different mood stablizers and have not had a lot of luck with side effects and such. Should I just use the ECT as maitenance? I'm on Cymbalta and Ativan, which I am going to ask her to increase the Cymbalta my next appt. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated greatly.

Thank You

Lori

I'm actually in the exact same situation as you, I have had what the doctors thought was depression for the last 4 years, and I have just recently been re-diagnosed as Bipolar Type II. I went to see a pharmacologist who specialized in medications and what will work, in what amount, for depression and bipolar. He really knew what he was talking about.

He said in his experience the best thing to start out with is stay on whatever anti-depressants you were on...or the ones that have been the most successful for you and then add a mood stabilizer. Alot of doctors change all yours meds, but I like the idea of starting slowly, b.c you never know what it going to work. The thought of changing all your medications is pretty scary. Another thing, I wanted to mention, as far as I know Lithium is considered an anti-psychotic drug, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure..its commonly used in type 1's because of that. I dunno..might be something to look into???

Thats all from me good luck

Your post caught my eye because you mentioned you were on a combination of Wellbutrin and Effexor..which is what I have been on the last couple of years. I have increased my dosage of both recently and it seems I have gotten worse..in terms of hypomania episodes, where I had maybe one a year before. I was just wondering what dosage you were on, if you are fine with disclosing that. I'm just curious to see if possibly this combination plays a role in increased hypomania.

Right now I am on 300mg of each.