Posted by Gordon (63.36.58.4) on May 24, 2001 at 15:53:12:
In Reply to: My thoughts posted by Bob P on May 24, 2001 at 13:34:44:
I didn't think I was bipolar either.
It took a lot of soul searching and an objective look at me to realize it.
I have read many books about it now, and I have seen myself and ALL the similarities.
My wife of 25 years has read it all also, she agrees, I am bipolar, as my mother was. She was given misdiagosed and given high doses of lithium. We all know what that does.
My 22 year old daughter is also bipolar with headaches (not diagnosed, but observed by my wife and I). The devil has not found her yet, and I pray to god he doesn't. But I will do any and everything I can to keep him away from her.
I just got off the phone with one of my doctors, and I am increasing my Depakote slowly to the maximum.
With Depakote, blood monitoring is important. It seems the devil has tricked my body and my levels went down, coincidently when the episode began.
I was taking 750 mg/day and my 12 hour levels were 79. After increasing it to 1000 mg/day (with my doctors concurrence, because I recognized the onset of depression). My 12 hour level was only 69.
Now, I will slowly (every 2-3 days) increase by 250 mg/day, until I am up to 2000 mg/day taken in two doses 12 hours apart.
As I said, if it works for me that's good, if it works for anybody else, that's better.
I feel this is something we should all take a look at. If you search in the archives, you will find many of us that suffer from mood swings.
Unfortunately, when we are not in cycle, we don't want to come here. Everytime the cycle ends, we pray it will never come again. Any of us that found an complete answer for them may only post it at that time.
Others that missed the post may never know.
I have taken a disability retirement from work and would really like my life back, ALL of it!
Gordon