Posted by Barbaracat on October 23, 2004, at 2:47:20
In reply to Re: NEURONTIN - sometimes » Barbaracat, posted by Snowie on October 22, 2004, at 12:55:25
Snowie,
Here are two websites I like alot, then I'll reply to your post:
http://www.psycheducation.org/
You could spend months burrowing into this site. It's great.http://www.mcmanweb.com
This is a great site and he updates it regularly. There's also a forum where other bipolars comment on his articles.> Wow, I thought you had to have the "classic symptoms" of bipolar disorder in order to have it (I don't even like to shop!), although I knew there were I and II forms that the disorder can take.
**That's what I thought too and was very shocked when I finally recognized myself as bipolar. No one wants that kind of stigma but the more I read about it and the many artists, authors, entertainers, etc. who have it, the more I see it as a gift whose energy can be harnessed.
>
> I've never taken lithium, but my sister did at one time. She went off it when she gained 40 lbs. and she takes something else but, sadly, she is now as big as a linebacker.**Yes, I've gained weight but I've been on so many porky meds that it's hard to tell what's doing it. Lithium does make it hard to lose weight, though. I went off it for about 4 months 'just to see' (boy, was I glad to get back on it again!) and during that time I dropped 15 pounds easily. Gained it back when I went back on without doing anything different. When I get regular exercise it's not much of a problem, but I have to work out like a demon to lose. There are other bipolar meds that don't have the weight problem but I didn't respond to them like I do to good old lithium.
>
>he put me first on Adderal, then Ritalin, and finally Strattera, and nothing did anything but make me feel as jittery as if I had drank 40 cups of coffee in the morning, so I figured I didn't have it, and went off the meds.**Same thing happened to me. I can get so disorganized and scattered at times, also hyperfocused to the exclusion of everything else. When I'm having a hypomanic episode, my house looks like a bomb went off. I leave a trail of clutter and I hate it but can't help it. My pdoc put me on ritalin and adderal and I thought I was jumping out of my skin, and it didn't help. As you'll see on the psycheducation.org site, bipolar is sometimes mistaken for ADD since it shares similar symptoms. Same for anxiety.
>>I hesitate to even mention anything new again lest he think, "here we go again."
**I'm sure he can take it. The object is not to make him like you but to get well.
>
> Thanks for this information. If I do have it I need to be treated, but why hasn't a pdoc ever mentioned it before?**Good question. I guess it's easy to become pigeon-holed and focused on a particular dx. Bipolar can be a real chameleon, looking like other things. And hopefully, you don't have it. I don't want to suggest anything that might be wrong for you simply because of my own experience. I know you're keeping an open mind.
However, the fact that your dad and sister both have it should have raised all sorts of red flags with him. The fact that you don't do well on SRRIs, suspected ADD, have anxiety, respond to neurontin - these are suspicious too. What he said about neurontin and anxiety should raise some of your own red flags. But he might be a wonderful doctor and I'm just projecting my own mistrust of the profession as it currently stands.
This is my two cents, but I don't think the majority of pdocs have the time, training or experience to adequately treat the many mood disorders they're seeing. I've only had two out of a dozen who I felt were talented healers and worth the money they were getting. I've been on every SSRI out there and you'd think one of those pdocs would have made the connection that they weren't working. It was I who suggested to my last pdoc that I might be bipolar, not him. This is a sad state of affairs. People in the grip of a serious mood disorder are not in a place where they can be their own advocates. But anymore, I think we have to be.
poster:Barbaracat
thread:365024
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041018/msgs/406251.html