Struggles Continue

I'm Bipolar? 17 Months After Diagnosis

by Marcia Purse
About Bipolar Guide

The last couple of months have been another roller coaster ride - some of it through La La Land.

Recently I was cleaning out some old notebooks and I found on a page dated in October of 1994: "I am still losing weight. Down to 124 pounds." (I wasn't complaining!) This was just three months after I had started taking Prozac for severe depression. No one knew, then, that long-term use of SSRIs could lead to sometimes disastrous weight gain. Now, six years and 60 unhappy pounds later, I am living proof. And the only reason I went to see a psychiatrist last year was because I wanted to find an antidepressant that would also allow me to get rid of all this excess weight.

So when I began writing this series of articles in May of 1999, I had just been stunned by being diagnosed bipolar. Little did I dream that I would also be chronicling month after month of struggle to find the right medications that would allow me to reach a satisfactory equilibrium AND allow the weight to come off again. Yet this has been the case - and your letters tell me that many of you, too, have suffered through the frustration of this kind of trial-and-error treatment. Yet there is no other way to find the right medication therapy. We each respond differently to the available drugs.

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Because our goal is to get me off SSRI medications completely, I went from 200 to 300 mg Serzone daily (150 morning and night), cutting Celexa (the SSRI) from 20 to 10 mg and maintaining 25 Trazodone. This seemed to be okay, though I was, as always, still struggling with getting things done. My next scheduled appointment with Dr. Meyer was on September 5, but there was a hitch: the insurance company. They wanted some kind of form filled out by the psychiatrist before they would authorize any more visits. Problem was, Dr. Meyer's receptionist had requested the form be faxed to her three times, and she still didn't have it. So the doctor and I talked briefly on the phone, and he suggested now going to 400 mg Serzone and cutting Celexa back to 5 mg per day.

I did this for a few days - and then made a horrific mistake.

Next: What NOT To Do With Your Meds

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