What is the best mood stabilizer?

[LittleTootie]

I have been on Lamictal for about 4 years, but I don't think it's doing any good controlling my bipolar II. I've been using the mood tracker and  it's showing extreme ups and downs, and I can certainly tell I still have symptoms.
The question is, what do you thinks works best for bipolar II? (or whatever one is NOT rapid cycling)
I'm afraid of lithium because when my boyfriend was on it, his emotions were completely out of control and i'm not about to risk that.
Seroquil just makes me tired. It used to be prescribed to me for insomnia.
What are my options? It's going to be a while before I get to see a psychiatrist. I just want to look at my options right now.

[bpchrisb]

I would say that Lamictal is one of the best mood stabilizers out there, but everyone is different. It is a medication that used to treat depression so it needs to be used in conjunction with something that controls mania. It can throw people around if it's just being used on it's own.

Lithium is a good medication to take along with it; don't use your boyfriend's experience as a gauge for how it will work for you. I, personally, take Neurontin with it and it works well.

[adel_ezz]

i wonder whether there is something called the best mood stabilizer. if there is such one then everybody would have switched over to it. But worse i doubt if your pdoc knows about it either because i don't like you to get disappointed waiting for him to designate one for you. All of them are nasty, i mean the meds, of course pdocs are not exempted.

nevertheless you said your boyfriend was on lithium and his emotions were out of control. I don't know the exact meaning of that, whatever that is, but still better than his mind goes out of control. Usually all the folks here weigh the pro and con of all the meds. it's a bloody relative thing you know. the aim mainly is to preserve the bits remaining of our brains and that is the philosophy one ends up with and adopt and forget the about the side effects since any med you will be taking will induce side effects even aspirin
good luck though

[paranoid_cataclysm]

It all depends on the person, each medication works differently for each individual.  What may work wonders with no side effects for you will cause horrible side effects in another person and not work for them at all.  Your options are really any mood stabilizer out of ones you haven't tried yet, provided they don't cause drug interactions or anything else of that nature.