Introduction

[bipolar-plus-blog]

Quetiapine Update

Things are good on this medication. Now up to 125 mgs. I am relaxed physically and have much more motivation to do stuff.My head is free of negative thoughts and guilt. I can see a future. Is this what normal feels like??

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Psychotherapy

Am being referred for psychotherapy to a clinic where they help people with depersonalisation. I am very pleased as at 62 I feel this is my last chance to get to grips with what has, and still is, a chronic problem which has stolen my life.

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Quetiapine Update

I am feeling pleased with how I feel so far. I feel far less anxious and more focused. I felt pleased with myself that I was able to be decisive enough to buy a table lamp today. I forgot the bread and bought the wrong bulb but hey it’s a big improvement. 

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Quetiapine

Mornings are difficult on my new medication (quetiapine). Drowsiness is not something I’m happy with. I don’t like the feeling of not being alert. It makes me feel out of control. Without quetiapine my brain won’t let me rest. The quetiapine calms thing down enough for me to focus on the world outside my head. I think what happens is I fight the calm feeling. I am not used to the feeling. Normally I am hyper vigilant and drug induced calm is very frightening.

A few days in taking quetiapine and I’ve got mixed feelings. I am sleeping much better which has to be good. How I feel during the day is very mixed. A couple of good days followed by a bad day. On the good days I have felt less depressed and more motivated On the bad days my brain feels like it’s fighting to stay in control.  I am hopeful that the medication will help if I allow it to. If I can stop trying to fight the quetiapine induced calm then I think my life could be improved greatly. Dosage at the moment is 75mgs and the aim is to get to 300mgs at my own pace. Tonight I increase to 100mgs.

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Do I Need Medication?

I have to say I don’t like taking medication. I would like to be able to manage my illness without medication and I have tried to do this in the past. My view now is that my life without medication is pretty awful . I worry (a lot) about side effects and long term effects particularly as I get older. My new medication carries the risk of diabetes. I don’t want diabetes. I’ll try and eat sensibly and if I am unlucky enough to get diabetes then I’ll manage the diabetes. That sounds like a fairly sensible plan (today). Tomorrow this will seem like a terrible plan. I already have high cholesterol (my antidepressant venlafaxine can cause high cholesterol). The leaflet states this. I don’t want diabetes and high cholesterol. Another side effect that can happen from quetiapine is the dreaded antipsychotic induced tardive dyskinesia (this is a, sometimes irreversible, movement disorder). The risk is far less with the second generation antipsychotics but no psychiatrist is going to give me 100% assurance that I won’t get it. Weight gain is another of my worries from quetiapine. However, I am going to give this drug a fair shot.

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Diagnosis

Hi to anyone who is reading. This is my first ever attempt at blogging. I have bipolar disorder plus other things, namely a tic disorder (My tic disorder is on the low end scale of Tourette’s), chronic anxiety and sometimes low key OCD. I also have a history of anorexia nervosa for which I was hospitalised more than once (back in the 1970s.) I consider myself to still have a mild eating disorder in that I sometimes binge eat.  I am an older person who is almost at retirement age (I don’t work) and first became ill as a teenager although I always felt ‘not right’ as a child. I am hoping that by blogging I can make sense and some kind of order out of my chaos. It would be great to help others in the process. Although I am not ‘cured’ I have a lot of experience and knowledge of bipolar and anorexia nervosa which I would love to share.

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Bipolar Medication

These are the medications I have tried and my review of them.

Imipramine Effective antidepressant with no bad side effects (Tricyclic antidepressant)

Prothiaden  Effective antidepressant. Sedating at night but this wears off by the morning and is a good drug (Tricyclic )

Venlafaxine  Worked to begin with but after 16 years I have had enough of it. Very hard to withdraw from (SNRI) Currently still taking

Citalopram  Cannot remember much about this one (SSRI)

Lamotrigine  Very effective for bipolar depression but not so much for hypomania. Exacerbated my tic disorder greatly (anticonvulsant used as mood stabiliser). Currently still taking

Depakote  Caused BIG weight gain (anticonvulsant)

Carbamazepine  Cannot remember much about this one (anticonvulsant)

Quetiapine  Just starting out on this one so will report back later (anti psychotic but also used for bipolar depression)

Clonidine  This is for my tic disorder. It is a drug used to treat high blood pressure but also used for tic disorders, anxiety, ADHD, alcohol withdrawal and a few other things. Very useful for my tics. Currently still taking