Syndicated from the Bipolar Blog When you begin seeing a psychiatrist (or any physician who manages your bipolar medication), you may begin to feel like a guinea pig. Your doctor tries one medication after another to see which one works and which one doesn't, which one produces the least annoying side effects, and which medications seem to get along best with one another when you're taking multiple medications. You may begin to wonder whether you are the first person on the planet who's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Shouldn't the medical community know by now what works and what doesn't?!

With this post, we continue our biweekly series on medications used to bipolar disorder and related symptoms. We launched the series with a post on lithium – the standard bearer for the so-called mood stabilizers .