Posted by Ritch on October 8, 2004, at 9:32:53
In reply to This Just In !, posted by D minor on October 7, 2004, at 14:29:25
> Hey,
> I said I'd keep y'all informed of the results of my pdoc visit today. I showed him my mood chart and told him about my ups and downs.
>
> Well, he's been saying for a while that he thinks I'm bipolar, but he actually wrote it down as my diagnosis for the first time today. He can't say what type of bipolar.
>
> And he's been thinking about putting me on Depakote. Well, I just took my first pill a few minutes ago. we'll see if this stops my cycling. How have people's experiences with Depakote been?
>
> dmIt's the main mood stabilizer I am on (about 5 years) except for lithium (18 years or so). It definitely makes a great set of brakes-no doubt about it. It reduces anxiety too, but not as well as clonazepam. It helps sleep, but not as good as Trileptal or Lithium did. The main troubles with it are weight gain and hair loss. I never had hair loss, but I did get some significant weight gain at "higher" doses (500mg-day - I'm med sensitive to everything, now taking 375mg day). The only other troubles I get with it are muscle "twitchiness" and cognitive dulling. The twitchiness tends to fade if I increase the dose temporarily (over a few days to a few weeks). I also got similar twitchiness from Lithium. The cognitive stuff fades after a few days - couple of weeks (for me anyhow). Suggestion: Don't get stuck taking a ton of it if you don't need to. It does diddly-squat for my seasonal bipolar depressions (except to ease the "mixed" or "agitated" part of any of that). Generally, it is the most tolerable antimanic that I've tried. I view tolerability in terms of what happens when you start something or increase something and how you adapt. If things generally worsen with time rather than ease (side effects) with time I don't consider it a tolerable med. Good luck with it.
poster:Ritch
thread:399302
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041007/msgs/400324.html