Posted by rachel on September 11, 1998, at 2:04:57
I've been taking 25mg of desipramine at bedtime, and 450mg eskalith cr, twice daily, for a year and a half. Since my last major depression (nine months of '95)i have been grateful just to function. Lately, however, i feel like i'm better and ready to make improvements. I want to be an artist again, and i want to quit smoking.
soooo, i got a scrip for wellbutrin sr--150mg, twice daily, with the desipramine, and lithium. it worked great! I had absolutely no desire to smoke, and other
nice effects---unfortunately it was nudging me toward hypomania---four hours of sleep and feeling fine is a very bad sign.
soooo, i kept taking the lithium and stopped both antidepressants. after three weeks of lithium only (i wanted to see if lithium alone would hold back depression)i started to get depressed. so back to desipramine and lithium.during my first depression, and first round of drug trials ( before the recognition of type II), i had been mis-diagnosed as unipolar. all the anti- depressants i tried had bizarre side effects. desipramine induced a hypomanic episode that lasted for six weeks after i stopped taking it. because of that, doctors would not prescribe it for me, until i demanded it, nine months into my third and last debilitating depression. before wellbutrin, desipramine was the only antidepressant that elevated my mood at all.
use i feel relatively strong and stable, i'm ready to seek the recipe that will help me be an artist again, and help me quit smoking---that's worth some trials.
so anyway, the next time i saw my psychiatrist, he raised the desipramine to 50mg, left the lithium and wellbutrin the same. (i had expected him to raise the lithium.)
after a month on that regimen, nothing has happened, except i'm sleeping more, because of the desipramine, that i can't sleep without.
sooo, i called and talked to his receptionist, to ask him where to go from there; she called me and said that he recommended "smokestoppers".
he's fired.
i realize that type two bipolar disorder is a convoluted pain in the brain, but if two experiments is all he'll attempt; how could he help me with something as complex as regaining my creativity?
how much i smoke, and how intensely i crave, has always changed with my moods. i think that quitting smoking may still be so hard, because, i am still very mildly depressed, and still don't have sufficient brain chemistry to cope with the stress of withdrawal.
what would you recommend as a good starting cocktail, to treat type 2 bipolarity and addiction? i'm in the market for a new brain m.d., and i'd like to compare notes.
poster:rachel
thread:602
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19980901/msgs/602.html