I am just responding to a statement you made when your daughter stopped her medication. You metioned she “relapsed”. Thats funny. I have had Bioplar II for over 10 years now so I know what it is like to either change up meds or what it is like to miss a dosage. You can never relapse because depression, bipolar disorders etc. are a chemical inbalance in your system so you can never relapse. You can never 100% cure yourself of this disease/disorder. Sorry to shock you with this information of your daughter but she will always have this disorder and as long as she sticks to her meds and focuses on what triggers her mania and depression, she can have a normal life.

To answer your question simply, yes there are less risky alternatives. First, let me just say that Lithium is nephrotoxic, also it can affect the thyroid. Also it often causes hand tremors. It’s often the best treatment course for people with refractory (ie resistent to treatment) bipolar type 1.

Anyway … the answer to your question. A combination of Zoloft (aka Sertraline) and Seroquel XR has shown great promise as an effective treatment of bipolar type 2 sans the ugly Lithium side-effects. March into your doc’s office and tell him you would like to try Zoloft and Seroquel XR together. Best of luck to you.

When I read the question and answer I get a different understanding. If meds don’t always work the same way when you return to taking them, why not? Same drug, same disease, should have the same outcome.

The understanding I get is that the drugs may not have done anything the first time they were used.

Spontaneous remission was discovered in the 1700′s when some in madhouses recovered with no treatment. No one knows why spontaneous remission happens.

That means you cannot determine if some one would have recovered with no treatment. There is no way to wind back time and test the same cases again under different methodologies.

The method used for drug trials gives no “testable objective results.” If someone improves the drug is credited. But placebo often beats or comes very close to beating the drug being tested.

Doesn’t that tell you something?

While you are undergoing a course of treatment for a repeating episode investigate your daily activities for the “special circumstances” for Subliminal Distraction exposure. This problem was discovered to cause mental breaks for office workers.

When my wife had the mental event she was diagnosed as seriously mentally ill within a day or so. SD outcomes cannot be distinguished from mental illness. Her doctors refused to believe she had been normal a few days earlier. They invented a scenario and operated on their fictional beliefs about what had happened.

If your mental distress waxes and wanes, or if the drug stops working investigate SD exposure. It will cost nothing and will not interfere with any treatment you have.

If you recover the doctor will claim that treatment caused it. Why should you care if you improve? You will have learned how to avoid the problem in the future. If Subliminal Distraction was the cause of your psychiatric symptoms they will stop when you find and eliminate the source of exposure.

Hi! I am also BipolarII. It sounds like your daughter and I are very similar. I have been diagnosed for 26 years. I took Lithium for 23 years with no side effects. All of the levels were checked at least every six months. At that point I started getting tremors,also in my tongue and eye. They even sent me to a neurologist. Finally, I went off lithium and in two weeks was back to normal! I also developed Hypothyroid along the way. Now I have another poll to take daily. The hardest thing for me was trying to find the right combination of drugs. I can’t tell you all the drugs I’ve tried. It’s always off one slowly, wait until completely out of your system, then try another,wait until it is in your system, watch for side effects, start all over again. It’s so frustrating, but many people with other diseases go through the same thing. Anyways, I loved my doctor. He was great about this. I am now on 150mg of Effexor XR, and 150mg of Lamictal.It works for me, but when I went on a higher dosage of Effexor, I went into a hypomanic stage from the meds! I stay alert and aware of any changes and see my doctor regularly. Do not stop taking meds without talking to him first!!!!

Is Orthomolecular Psychiatry an effective treatment for bipolar disorders?

Recently when questioning the escalation of medication for my son, 49, who is autistic and haa lived in care home for twenty five years. I was told the doses of carbamazapien and Olanzapine were to treat bipolar. The fist I’d heard of it and as we have our son at home every weekend and high days and hoidays felt we chould have been consulted/informed before this. However I do question the diagnosis as and feel some of his medication is triggered the care home staff in search of a quiet life. Despite being prescribed by a doctor.Whiel not denying he may b need teh drugs I feel he is overprescribed and becoming dozy and slow in his movements. Has he any rights? Do we as his parents in questioning the medication? I woudl like to get a chance to reduce his medication but feel the care home feels their authority is being threatened