are there any good non-psychopharmaceutical treatments for bipolar II? this shit really sucks desu.
my doctor recommended that i might look into transcranial magnetic stimulation but afaict the research for BPD is sparse, although that there is good evidence that it is helpful for depression.
going to probably kill myself some day otherwise :-/
sorry i see now that BDP is conventially used to abbreviate borderline personality disorder, which i don't have
Are there no drugs which, in low dosages, might not help? Is your doctor a psychiatrist? My impression is the the medical community is eager to try various medications to see what their effect is.
yes, my doctor is. and i've been on meds. was on them for 4 years and did a long taper while working closely with my doctor. seems though like my symptoms are coming back and i'd rather not go back on meds. it really is nice not having to take a drug cocktail every morning. wellbutrin + lithium worked best. lithium is great--and i mean this unironically--aside from the fact that it gives most people tremors and requires frequent blood testing lest one damages one's kidneys. unfortunately sampling the pharma company's wares is not to be done lightly. going on lexapro, for example, was hell and i don't think i could have done it while also holding down a white collar job.
I'm Bipolar 1 and Latuda has been kick ass for me. Don't know if it works for 2 but figured I'd throw it out there
I'm 1 and so far lamictal has worked for me. Nothing close to an episode yet. It's so weird not going from suicidal depression to bouncing off the walls so much that I don't actually get anything done and start scaring people. I can just do things normally now and haven't fucked anything up. I totally quit drinking after meds too, I had a fifth a day habit. I don't even like alcohol anymore. It was definitely self medication.
>are you me
As soon as I hopped on the Latuda I quit drinking. I wasn't up to a fifth a day but it was pretty bad. I also no longer explode into fits of rage which has done wonders for retaining friendships and relationships
any side effects that you've experienced?
op here. had been on lamictal + lexapro prior to undergoing an outpatient program where they put me on lithium instead, so i never really to experience lamictal. my understanding though is that it can have some nasty side effects too (hair loss i think?)
my doctor did mention to me l-methylfolate because apparently some people genetically can't process folic acid and this is the bioavailable version. a bottle is like $10 compared to a genetic test which is several hundred so i ordered a bottle to see how i feel taking that for a week.
Latuda makes me a bit drowsy and if I'm not careful it's easy to binge food wise. Other than that I have zero complaints
self diagnosed bipolar 2 here. Or I expect that's what I have after living with it when it started 25 years ago. Too depressed to bother seeing a doctor and I don't even think I can afford it.
monitoring this thread
>go hypomanic
>have so much energy you tell doc ur whole life story
problem solved
hypomania isn't something that can be turned on/off. Even if I could afford it, there's no knowing if the day I show up I'll be in a productive mood. I could go there and waste an entire session and waste money.
Although, lately I've been looking into autogenic training for anxiety/stress. Suposedly if you do enough autogenic training you can do stuff like control blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature and so on. It seems reasonable for the possibility that bipolar patients could exert some control over their condition with extensive training? If not atleast I'll have a better grasp on my anxiety. I havn't really felt like trying this DESU but I've been seaching for any studies they did with bipolar.
Maybe when I feel better I'll give it a go. Only good thing about bipolar is knowing that no matter how shitty I feel I know all I gotta do is just hold on and eventually I'll feel better.
the virgin bipolar v the chad bipolar II
Yeah my life is significantly better now. Forever I argued nothing was wrong with me and that psych meds were bullshit until I had such a bad manic episode that everyone I knew was telling me shit. I screamed about someone just mentioning making pancakes instead of waffles and was going off on tangents about how I wanted to kill people for stuff in traffic and then forgetting I even got mad and then motormouthing about a bunch of stuff. As predicted, people wanted to be around me less. Depression does wonders too, if you even get the will to hang out with someone they get really bored and it ends up sucking. Really socially destructive disease. I'm also really glad I quit drinking, it was causing about as many problems as bipolar. Funny thing is when I looked back on my binge drinking patterns it lined up exactly with episodes and when stable I quit. I still do drugs pretty much daily but it's just kratom and stims, and I'm prescribed the latter anyways.
I don't really have any side effects that I notice but I was a severe bartard to be able to sleep when I was manic so those kind of effects I might not even notice compared to that. It feels like I'm losing more hair than normal but I think it's just psychological. If I notice actual thinning I might try something else. I don't get the rash or anything either. I'm pretty lucky in terms of any side effects. It works so far and if it isn't broken don't fix it.
i'm bipolar 3 + panic attacks (PA) during depression phases.
i visited a psychiatrist during the first occurrence of depressive state and PA. she prescribed me chlorprothixene (antipsychotic, typical, sedative). it works like a charm, but i'm afraid of the side effects both temporary (i definitely got dumber and became emotionless from 30mg) and long-term. she told me to switch to depakine, but that was during my hypomanic phase so it was basically useless.
Made me laugh ty
did he say transcranial magnetic stimulation or Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation? Hell I could probably build a TDCS circuit at home and test it out.
TMS, specifically. why?
Im bipolar 2. Just came from a depressed phase. Last manic phase i became deluded and thought i had to shit in bars on the floor as a political stance against globalist cathars. Got arrested after the third time. Alot of embarrassment
are you sure you're not bipolar I...?
No clue man i dunno these fuckin numbers. That guy up theres saying bipolar 3, wtf is that.
maybe he's bipolar 0?
Have you ever had a breakdown?