ECT gets a really bad rap. The way they do it now is much, much safer and less traumatic.
I met a number of partial hospital who were so depressed that they were catatonic before they had ECT. All were grateful and said it saved their lives. Though the 'net and word-of-mouth is full of negative stories, I haven’t met anyone in person who felt badly about their experience.
I won’t work with any psychiatrist who won’t/doesn’t do ECT. Before I got manic in October, and after two years of medication failures, we were getting close to trying it. If I ever get that depressed again, I would try it.
Yeah, Cecil did an article about it. I think it’s in the archives online. I don’t disagree with it, but on the chart it was “Depressed? ZAAP!”
But then the way the chart is set up is that the furthest to the right is the most severe, so it would actually be with the “severe depression with psychosis” area.
It seems to work really well for improving your state enough to allow medications to take effect more effectivley.
I had ECT. It was during the period when I was misdiagnosed and they thought I had major depression. Three times a week for a month. I have to confess, I think it helped. The only after effect I’ve noticed is that my memory of the time in the hospital is a little scrambled. But I guess that’s a small price to pay to stop me from repeatedly overdosing on my meds.
I have MDD (Major Depression Disorder) I don’t get any of the manic highs, just the lows. At one point, I didn’t leave my room for a month except to eat once a day, and to pee. That’s it. Shower? To much work. When I finally emerged, I had lost 20 lbs. and can’t remember whole huge blocks of time. I felt like I was sleepwalking.
I never made plans past the age of 21 because I never thought I’d last that long.
I was committed at one point for 48 hours observation. My husband thought I was gonna do myself in. Nope. Too much effort.
Meds have stabilized me. However, I find if I get upset over something, my husband asks. “Are you taking your meds?” This just pisses me off. I understand it’s a ligitimate question, but eveytime I get mad doesn’t mean I’m going off the deep end.
I kinda miss it sometimes. Not the lows, but climbing out again. I always had my best insights when fighting the lethargic demons. I try to draw strength from knowing I’m still here. Every day I think, “Should I get out of bed? Why not? Maybe I’ll learn something today.”
I try to do things I enjoy, even if I get flack about it from Mr. Granola. (Why do you read so much? Why do you sit and watch the cats for hours? Are you feeling ok?)
Sometimes, I wonder if I’m the only one, and then I come here. Every post I read makes me glad I found this place. Every post makes me love you guys more.
Wow. VERY similar to what I experienced asx a teen. I didn’t leave my room for six months. Well, save for the peeing, sometimes food, every now and then a shower cause I smelled thing.
The only good thing I recall about that time was my writing seemed muchmore powerful to mewhen I was crazed. Sometimes I feel like all the meds and therapy and all has taken away from my creativity and that’s somethng I feel the loss of quite acutely. I think that was part of the reason I did the on-off-on-off dance with meds, too.
I’ve taken Trazodone, didn’t do much for me. They’ve never offered me Lithium/librium. Of course, the paranoid schitzo is a relatively recent diagnosis, too, on top of the manic thing. I seriously went off the deep end two years ago and had this severe complex where everyone (and a few people in particular) were going to get me, hurt me, imprison me against my will, etc.
God was THAT horrible.
Does anyone else get that thing where, when in the midst of a manic depressive stage youreally CAN’T remember stuff? L ike, I can’t remember three months of my life two years ago. But I am told I was really horrible to some friends. But I honestly can’t remember it. Every now and then, I get this guilt trip like, you didn’t even apologize. Well, for what, specifically? Cause, I wasn’t really there, if you get my meaning. It wasn’t me.
I dunno. Perhaps that’s me refusing to take responsibility.
Ink
Who has been medicated since she was 15 and now is 35. But the on-off-on-off thing helped, too. :dubious: :rolleyes:
That’s apparently a common side effect. The amnesia is usually is a short term thing specific to the time period of the ECT.
I just looked at Cecil’s article on ECT and it’s not the one I remember reading. I reaad a very non-scary article, Cecil’s still makes it sound a bit more barbaric that it is today.
Inky are you seeing a psychiatrist or a general practitioner for diagnosis or treatment? IANAD (and know nothing about your particular history), but speaking in very general textbook terms, the medications you’re taking (at least the ones you’ve mentioned by name) are inconsistent with a biploar and schizophrenic diagnosis.
They’ve never tried lithium? I can understand if they tried something, you didn’t respond, so they tried something else – it can be a delicate little dance they have to do to find the right combination that works. But never? Lithium is, as Q.N. pointed out earlier, the tried and true method – it’s usually the “First Course” of treatment for a diagnosis of biploar because it tends to have really dramatic results. That they would diagnose you as bipolar and never even try it (or a comparable mood stabilizer) is atypical – unless you have other significant medical issues like cardiovascular disease or kidney problems that could be aggravated by it.
The medications you have named do not (typically) address either mania, nor schizophrenic delusions or psychosis. I’m surprised that there’s been no mention of mood stabilizers or neuroleptics at all if you’ve been presenting with symptoms of mania and delusions of persecution.
It can be very difficult to find a doctor who knows how to treat schizophrenia properly (no, really, it’s hard to find a doctor who truly understands the nature of the disease) and you certainly don’t want your mania to go untreated. Psychiatrists can really have varying levels of experience with long-term illnesses.
Try contacting San Francicso’s branch of NAMI and see if they have any helpful resources. See if there is a way to get a referral for a second opinion. There may be a pharmaceutical combination that is much more effective in your case. Some biploar folks do very well on anti-depressants alone, but that’s usually after the standard treatments have yielded less-than-ideal results. Finding the right combo can be a pain in the butt, but it does sound like your treatment is a bit unconventional and you may wish to doublecheck with another psychiatrist to be sure it’s the most appropriate one for you.
Inky, Eats went ahead and said what I’ve been thinking but debating with myself about saying.
The other aspect of your situation that puzzles me a little is that there’s a special diagnosis for someone with both bipolar disorder symptoms and schizophrenia symptoms. It’s called schizoaffective disorder. If your doctor is unaware of the existence of this DSM category, it might be another indication that your doctor is not as informed as s/he needs to be to treat you effectively.
The intersection of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is one of the most confused areas in psychiatry, because they are traditionally thought of as being two totally different disorders with different biological bases. This makes treatment of schizoaffective disorder much more complicated. Few psychiatrists have experience with it because it is not a common problem.
Those with schizoaffective disorder, perhaps more than those with any other DSM diagnosis, need a true expert in that field.
Oh, I debated, lemme tell you! I debated and debated with myself. I neither wanted to offend not to second guess anyone’s doctor. (Nor do anything naughty vis-à-vis SDMB guidelines for “dispensing unqualified medical advice”).
I eventually called Mom_Crayons who worked at a medical clinic as a counselor (And oy! they have a big roster of mentaly ill clients that she deals with) and asked if she thought it was a little odd. She was puzzled and said “it’s… unusual.”
Granted there are huge variances is treatments and in the realm of illnesses that affect the brain the “standard” treatments can have a lot of exceptions to the rule. E.g./ Lithium works wonder for up to 75% of bipolar patients, but that still leaves a solid 25% for whom it has little useful effect. A lot of pharmopsychiatry (is that a word?) is still hit and miss because no two patients are truly alike and many conditions are comorbid with others which complicates things.
So, please don’t take offense, I’m mostly just concerend that what you describe is not matching the standard, general, textbook course of treatment that one would typically get in the U.S. or Canada.
My father was never treated properly. It’s only posthumously (as a result of my diagnosis, since BPD has hereditary aspects) that they realized “oh, he was on the wrong program all along.” He died at the age of 62 (cancer). That means he spent 40 years taking medications that were never suited to his particular illness, even though he was under psychiatric care. They addressed his depression and anxiety and somehow missed the rest of the spectrum.
As will any major illness, be sure to get a second, independent opinion. (In my father’s case, each doctor had reviewed the other’s notes and never really evaluated him indepedently from scratch.)
I know what you mean. I have always thought of my depression as a wave. (Even more since the tsunami) Sometimes the waves would dip very, very low. But as the waters rose, I would find myself confident and creative. (Of course everything after being depressed feels better) The meds have evened out the waves, but has in no way made them smooth. Sometimes I think hubby is afraid I’ll go surfing again.
Yes, this does sound exactly like a rapid-cycling bipolar. A lot of times bipolar starts out as depression first, so it is easy to not get a correct diagnosis until the “real” pattern shows up months or years down the road.
There are a lot of different meds that may help- the traditional Lithium, Depakote, Tegretol, Topamax, Lamictal, Zyprexa (usually an adjunct med), etc etc. Do you have a psychiatrist for meds as well as a therapist? If not, get one, asap. And be sure they specialize in bipolar.
I know it’s really really unbelieveably hard right now, but I promise you that there is a lot of hope once you are correctly diagnosed and treated. It doesn’t have to be this way forever, even if it feels that way right now.
You are doing such a great job asking for support and coping with everything. I know how hard that must be when you feel so chaotic inside. Keep it up, and don’t be afraid to ask for support and help when you need it.
Oh, and when I swing high or hypo, my head floods with my own music, fully-orchestrated - even if I haven’t gotten around to actually putting the orchestration on paper. I just… hear it all.
I can hear every instrument’s line individually at the same time as I hear all of the instruments playing together… if you can wrap your head around that. (My head seems to be able to.)
I just got music notation software and learned it in a couple of hours; it’s much faster than doing it on paper. Now, at least, I can get the music out of my head. I got up today and spent six or seven hours orchestrating the opening number of my show. Non-stop.
Needless to say, I’m mixed and rapid cycling, and have been for a couple of weeks now. I can’t go any higher on the stabilizer, either.
In your situation, adding another mood stabilizer is common.
Most psychiatrists believe there’s a link between creativity and/or genius and bipolar disorder. The best scholarly work on the subject is probably this book by Kay Redfield Jamison.
