YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Trileptal, 600 mg in the morning, 600 mg at night
Risperidone, 2 mg at night

1000 mg Depakote
500 mg Welbutrin
40 mg Prozac

I think that's right.

Lamictal 50mg (just started recently, and lied to the doctor when he asked if I was ready to increase. I know I should, but I'm afraid of being medicated)
Trazodone 50mg as needed to sleep (the lamictal has been giving me trippy lucid dreams. Anyone else have that problem?)

1200mg. of Lithium (600mg in the morning and 600mg at night)_
2mg. of Risperidone (take more as needed when I start going without sleep and revving up into mania)

These drugs have saved my life!!!!

A lot of people are on Lamictal! That's the first med they ever tried on me and it gave me the rash. Has anyone tried Lexapro? I know they don't recommend SSRIs for bipolar, but I'm already on Abilify, clonazopam, and Adderall and my depression is coming back.

150mg zoloft
500mg depakote
2mg klonopin

Working hard to get off the klonopin but my psychiatrist would like to reduce zoloft first because it seems to be triggering the hypomania. I also started therapy again with a psychologist I really like. Still pretty concerned about the high klonopin doseage but both doctors know and I trust their judgement so I guess its just gonna be a slow process.

Lamictal - only 100mg per day now as being slowly cut down
Lithium 900mg per day - don't believe this has had much of an affect.
Serequel 200mg per day -
Baclofen 20mg - this is for an unrelated neurological issue

My psychiatrist with much explanation to her carefully considered decision had put me on lamictal as a partner to the Lithium I was already taking, unfortunately neither seemed to have much of an effect. Episodes of depression were the same intensity and I ended up with a full blown manic episode that put me in hospital where all they did was whinge about my psychiatrist putting me on Lamictal and told me to stop taking it (slowly) and put me on Serequel but this has caused 30kg of weight gain over 6mnths and they want to increase the dose

Duloxetine DR 60mg 1x daily
Risperidone 0.5mg 2x daily
Risperidone 2mg at Bedtime
Lamotrigine 150mg 1x daily
Lorazepam 1mg 3x daily

I've only been on meds for about a month, the psych gave me 2.5 mg of resperidone first which completely mellowed me out, I laughed at kitchen appliances for three days. I was feeling super foggy though and it freaked me out so I recently switched to Lamotrigine and I'm working up to 100 mg. The switch was hard because I was in a big downswing and the Resperidone was helping more than I thought but it's starting to even out now. I'm feeling more coherent than last time. The positive messages about Lamotrigine on this thread give me some hope.

I'm still having some anxiety about being on meds at all. My family doesn't know because they would react really badly and I know it's for the best but I don't like keeping secrets. I've had friends in the past who took meds and I didn't judge them at all but I'm having a hard time extending that compassion to myself. The thought of being reliant on medication for the rest of my life is terrifying to me. I guess I'll get used to it.

Ziggy, I felt the same way when I went on mine 3yrs ago. Its embarrassing, and sounds weak. Like we cant handle life ourselves. Then you start feeling better and think, STFU to anyone who doesn't get it, I'm finally ok! And thats th ebottom line.


After a few months, someone sad, "WOW! You look great, and I've never seen you so..."

That was the opportunity to answer back with 'Heres what happened, and I'm now talking this medicine....."

When everyone sees you doing well, and you try to talk about it, be prepared for 'a lot of ...Hey, whatever works for you....