Two Trees Media — the Bipolar Experts

Pros and Cons of getting treatment

Almost all of us want to believe that our bipolar disorder is something we can beat on our own, without medicine and without a label. Get as much information as you can and make a choice about whether to take medicines. The choice may involve weighing up risks — and only you can choose among the risks. Sometimes you have to settle for the ‘least worst’ option, but always remember you don’t have to suffer intolerable pain or distress, unlike people a hundred, or even fifty years ago, when old drugs struggled to be effective.

If you do go off your medicine, don’t be made to feel ashamed — you will have learned a great deal from your own experience and you’ll be in a better position to make your own decision about treatment.

Mood Stabilizers

Mood stabilizers work to flatten out the fluctuations of mood.

Mood Lifters

This is the 'anti-depressant' group. They lift the wavy line graph upwards:

There are several classes of antidepressants, from the old monoamine oxidase inhibitors to tricyclics, tetracyclics, the 'serotonin' group or SSRIs and newer drugs that act on noradrenalin.

Each has a different side effect profile and so it's worthwhile keeping on asking your prescribing psychiatrist or doctor if you are having bothersome side effects.

Symptom Settlers

Drugs in this category include antipsychotics and benzodiazepines. They are used to quieten agitation and psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations. They all have a sedative effect.

Chlorpromazine (Largactil®, Thorazine®), thioridizine (Melleril®, Mellaril®), and haloperidol (Haldol®, Serenace®) are examples of antipsychotics that have been used traditionally. These are older drugs, widely criticized for their capacity to cause sedation (people describe this feeling as ‘trying to swim through peanut butter’), and that they have serious and potentially life-threatening effects.

In the last decade newer ‘atypical’ antipsychotics were developed for people with schizophrenia and some of these (for example, risperidone (Risperdal®) and olanzapine (Zyprexa®)) may be used for the treatment of severe acute bipolar disorder. These drugs appear to be more effective in controlling symptoms and are claimed to be ‘safer’, but they still carry serious risks. Weight gain is one of them. Ask your doctor to trial a different antipsychotic if this is a problem for you as you might be able to use a different atypical antipsychotic medicine without gaining weight.