Bipolar Type II Support Group

So...

Seroquel XR 300mg goes up to 400mg, as I've already derived benefits from it and pdoc reckons 400 might be the dose for me

Citalopram 20mg to be discontinued. Apparently he asked me to do this last time I was with him but I'm very dubious this is the case given the relative importance of that appointment to both of us

I'm discontinuing it over a week, taking the dose on alternative days and then fully stopping. Here's hoping for no withdrawl!!! Does anyone have experience of coming off citalopram/an antidepressant with this or other rapidity...?

Clonazepam .25 mg retained for evening use

Zopiclone 7.5mg retained for evening use

[u]Other interesting things the pdoc said

- I asked if bp was progressive. He said 'no', which I was surprised about! This runs contrary to the other things I've read. He said the more time you spend in an acute episode the more likely you are to spend more time in episodes like that but if medication was used properly to keep you out of full blown depressions/hypermanias then episodes can decrease in frequency.

- I asked if my recreational drug use might have 'caused' bp. He said at worst it might have brought its presentation foreward somewhat and that's it. This was a relief to me.

- He spoke more broadly about bipolar and remarked that only 1% of the brain's neurotransmitters are known about and that in the future it is likely that bipolar will be many-times subdivided into multiple different 'bipolars' and it will likely be the role of some sort of neural imagining to discern the difference between them, thus precipitating different pharmaceutical treatments in response.

lol the last points are obviously just me and him chatting but wish me well for the med change...there's a chance apparently that coming off the anti-d could adversely affect my mood. Please keep your fingers crossed with me that instead it will calm the racing thoughts and be that next step towards stability!

yeah i hear what you're saying...my pdoc has used both 'disease' and 'disorder' to describe bp...so I'm agnostic on using one term over the other...

...i did specifically ask him whether episodes became more frequent and severe with time...this was what he said 'no' to (on the condition that there is compliance with treatment)...this is what i meant (incorrectly or otherwise) by the term progressive

lol joy it was quite an interesting chat...to be honest he precipitated most of it. the first thing he said to me which he reiterated today was that only 10% of people have no significant fluctuation in their mood and that these people are the truly abnormal ones & that furthermore there were many, many people mood disorders who didn't report them...

I hope you med change goes well and you have little to no withdrawal from the one your quitting.

I can't say for sure I got worse over time since I was always depressed it was less at times but my frequency of major crashes came closer as I got older. This could have been due to a major lack of self esteem and self medicating more than BP getting worse. In other words I had a lot more triggers as time went on and I wasn't dealing with the depression or my traumatic past. The more I tried to repress those memories the worse it got for me. I hope that makes sense everyone.