If this is true, why have my depressive symptoms responded so favorably to Effexor? Does this mean I don’t have bipolar disorder? I’m so confused!
Antidepressants don’t help bipolar patients, study finds
liz | 2:02 PM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
I’m with you. Effexor didn’t work for me. Or should I say it worked too well? I was catapulted into a major manic episode. I take serequel now and wonder if Effexor might now control my depression with serequel controlling the top end of my mood disorder.
I’m not inclined to think much of a study of 300 some odd people in 22 different cities taking one of two different anti-depressants or placebo. Could it be that Wellbutrin just wasn’t the right drug for some or Paxil for others? I’ve taken both before stumbling onto Lexapro. I’m pretty upset if we’ve forked out what we have for psych meds to find out that a sugar pill would have gotten control of the tears, numbness, hostility, and all other signs of depression. Clearly, this study just means they need to study more.
Let me count all my diagnosis’s….I no longer care to list them or identify with them, just as long as the meds keep me..safe. And that the good days are more than the bad days even if it’s 4 to 3…
Every Dr. has a different take on my disorder.? (s?)
Aw crap, now I’m confused..how am I going to sleep now?
Hello Liz, I’m sure you’ve researched this yourself, and you know that antidepressant drugs are often effective at treating the depressive episodes of people with bipolar disorder, but that there is always the risk that they trigger a manic episode. The American and Bristish guidelines advise that antidepressants are used in conjunction with a mood stabilising drug to try to reduce this risk of “switching”(have a look at the British Association of Psychiatry treatment guidelines at http://www.bap.org.uk/consensus/BipolarAlgorithm.pdf
The relationship between bipolar depression and unipolar depression is a matter of considerable importance for those researching these illnesses. One view is that they may be quite different at a causal level, but share similarities at a more superficial level of brain function such that they both give rise to apparently similar symtoms. If we then argue that the current antidepressant drugs are working at this superficial level, then we can rationalise their efficacy in both disorders.
Reply: