Drug woes

This is just a short post to get some things out there. I’m having some trouble with my meds lately. I was on some great insurance a while back and I was on Abilify, Trileptal, Lexapro, and Seroquel. Nice cocktail there. I was doing really well on that and then I lost my insurance when I was forced to quit my job. I’m going to my local mental health center and they’re great, but now I’ve switched psychiatrists and guess what?…they have different ideas about what medications I should be taking. On top of that, without insurance I have to live on samples at the moment and Trileptal is damn near impossible to get as a sample.

My new doctor doesn’t like to prescribe antidepressants to people with bipolar disorder because they can cause unnecessary mood cycling. That’s all fine and well, but I tend to be depressed a LOT more than I’m manic and the meds I’m on now aren’t cutting it. I’m back on Lamictal (I took it about a year ago) and Abilify and we’re tapering off on Seroquel (only when I have a mood flux or if I really can’t sleep). Last time I was on Lamictal I was up to a 150mg dose PLUS I had Lexapro. My mood was pretty good. I had some flexibility with my drugs, too. I could lessen my dosage of Lexapro when I was feeling a manic episode coming on and I could up my Seroquel for the same reason. It helped me feel like I was more in control of what was happening to me. Now my Lexapro has been taken away and I’m only on 100mg of Lamictal and I’m just not feeling up to myself yet.

If you’ve taken Lamictal then you’re well aware of the potential rash you can get from it. There’s about a 10% chance of getting the rash and less than 1% of that can be fatal. The trick here is that the rashes all appear the same so if you get the rash you immediately must go off the medication. I’ve so far had no rashes or anything, but because of the risk one has to use a step-up process to get to a high dose. I had to step up from 25mg a day to 100mg a day over a 5-week period. This has been a LONG five weeks, let me tell you.

The short of it is, I just don’t feel happy. I’m functional to a point, but my motivation is still relatively low and my energy level is lacking. I have a med check coming up next week and I’m going to let them know how I feel about my medication and see if we can’t fix this. I’m just not feeling up to myself. I’d love to hear some of your stories about your medication mishaps. I know I’m not the only one struggling to find that perfect combination of price and effectiveness here. Any advice for me? …maybe I should quit complaining and start exercising.