Posted by Ron Hill on May 21, 2002, at 19:22:13
In reply to mood stabilizers first - ron and mom, posted by Krazy Kat on May 21, 2002, at 18:23:54
KK,
I agree with you fully! And I have read several medical documents that state the exact same thing. If the pdoc can not decide between BP II or ADHD, then the pdoc should be conservative and treat with a moodstabilizer first and observe the results. A moodstabilizer will typically not hurt nor help an ADHD (or ADD) patient but great damage can be done to a BP II patient by feeding him/her pstims and/or AD's without a moodstabilizer fully in place.
I'm opinionated on this issue because I lost a lot and endured much unneeded mental health pain because an inept pdoc misdiagnosed me as ADHD (without conducting any formal testing) and sent me home with a pocket full of Ritalin telling me to figure out my dose by trial and error. When I became very moody two months later, he added an AD (Paxil). Shortly thereafter mania took over and it was off to the races.
-- Ron
poster:Ron Hill
thread:106220
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020517/msgs/107205.html