Successful Medications for Bi-Polar

[angrydook]

I've long been diagnosed with Major Depressive disorder with Social and General Anxiety. But lately with some self analyzing and revelation to my psychiatrist we seem to think that it may me Bipolar disorder.

Does anyone out there have a success story about a certain medication or treatment for their bipolar disorder?

[Peter Forster]

For what you are interested in I can think of a couple of resources -

http://www.crazymeds.us/
This is an irreverent look at medications. A forum in which you will find lots that is.... how to find a nice word... "crazy".... but also lots that is helpful... all of this comes from the "patient" perspective which is what you were asking about.

www.patientslikeme.com
This is a much bigger site that isn't as well organized, but has lots of information that is probably of interest.

A couple of final thoughts -

I do think that there is some value in matching treatments to the specific form of bipolar. I suspect it is bipolar II given what you have said. It may also be useful to look at how your moods change. I find that it is useful to consider which way your moods are more likely to switch quickly (depressed to energized or energized to depressed?) when thinking about medications, as well as what the balance is in terms of time spent energized (or hypomanic) versus time spent depressed. If you want to let me know about your own mood experiences I might have a bit more information to give you.

Patient forums tend to be a good resource for finding out about adverse effects.... but tend to be less useful for finding out what has worked (effectiveness)... because you are probably more likely to be posting if things aren't working and you are irritated about that than if everything is going great in your life...

[Jaquta]

The expert will be better able to advise but you may also like to check out the bipolar community forum and possibly even the depression community forum.