NEED BI-POLAR ADVICE

By bunny30 Friday, November 30, 2007

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I am a mother of a teenager daughter who suffers from bipolar and borderline personality disorder. We have struggled for years to get her on the right medicine. Before her diagnoses of bipolar we treated her with antidepressants and that turned out bad. She ended up in the hospital twice from a bad reaction to Effexor. The we tried Klonopin...BAD. Then Depakote and her hair started falling out. The doctor put her on Geodon and that has helped the rage that she has, but not the racing thoughts or the obsessing or cutting. If you have a teenager or have had one with this illness, can you offer me some advice on what medicine (s) might of worked. The doc is talking about Topamax, but I've heard bad things about it as well as Lithium and Welbutrin. HELP!

Topamax/Geodon

Comments (6) | Add comment

Hopeful mom

11/30/07 6:29pm

Is she in therapy? Yeah getting the right meds is a long process. My son has benefited greatly from twice weekly therapy sessions. She gives him coping skills to help until the medicine really kicks in for him.

Hopeful mom

11/30/07 6:36pm

You're going to hear bad things about all of them. They all have side effects. What you have to figure out is will the good outweigh the bad. I would suggest finding a doctor who specializes in adolescent mental disorders and who will really dig into the history to figure out what's going on. Antidepressants are bad for people with bipolar unless another drug is given to stabilize their moods. We found that out when my son was given Zoloft only and he broke his own hand. They gave him an antipsychotic after that and the two together helped him somewhat. We're still working on the right combination and I'm hoping we'll figure that out soon. Don't give up, they have lots of things to help her and it just may take awhile to get it all right.

Eric

12/ 1/07 6:00am

First of all you’re dealing with two totally separate illnesses if even that is true. Borderline personality Disorder is often misdiagnosed as bipolar because of similar traits associated with the two. The main difference is that one can and is treated with medications whereas the other is with intensive therapy of modifying learned behaviors.

Medications are not going to help someone with Borderline disorder, if anything it can actually make things worse. I would suggest at this point you get a second opinion from a good child psychiatrist & therapist that specializes in behavior modifications in regards to BPD. The problem with this illness is that it didn’t happen over night and can’t be fixed quickly. It’s not a chemical imbalance of tweaking medications found with bipolarism.

Giving bipolar medications to a borderline is like dowsing flames with gasoline.

JOAN JOHNSON

1/12/08 6:04pm

First of all, are you seeing a psychiarist--because they have the best knowledge about the medications. I would also recommend doing your own research about each drug and other drugs that are currently on the market--I would also read other's experience with the drug your looking into. Also, have you taken your daughter for second, third, etc opinions. I have been on effexor for 5 years and that antidepressant has been the best. I have been on Seroquel and that has worked well, but has caused high choresterol and trigelisterised (fat containt in the blood level) I am now moving the Geodon and slowly weaning off of Seroquel. I am also older than your daughter so that puts me at a higher risk. So, if you need to see another doctor I would do that. I believe each state through the internet suggests doctors that our best in their field in your state. If she is bipolar1 she may quality for Abilify along with other medications if needed. Please do not lose hope. Each body reacts differently to each drugs. I will be praying for you that you and your daughter will find the right combination.

Terri-Lynn

11/ 4/10 11:07pm

wen i was younger i had borderline and still suffer from bipolar, i was a cutter ext...

Zoloft is a horrable drug it accually coses susacidle tendincies, and im not sure there really is any advice that any one can give, just give her support, but dont treat he too different or shell start either slashing out or feelinf "sick" (from my own experiences. Theripy is really the best choice, and careful with the meds, too much experimenting is not good for any body. But the best type of theripy i know of is called art theripy. (good luck too you and your daughter)

anonymous

11/26/10 8:49pm

Hi, for sorting out all things related to psychiatric meds, I highly recommend this site: http://www.crazymeds.us/

(the guys there have a lot of experience and knowledge)

NEED BI-POLAR ADVICE

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