Going on my 6th med, lottttttttttttts of side effects

The weather here has been absolutely crazy. We went from 30 degrees and freezing rain last week (everything was closed and no one went to work for a few days because of hazardous conditions) to -30 degrees today. Oh my gosh….it’s COLD. Funny how when winter ends, we forget about how awful it was until it rolls around. I’m really hoping that this time next year, we’ll be moving to a warmer climate again.

As far as my mental state, I’m going on my 6^th, that’s right SIXTH med trial since my hospitalization. Ugh…I’m so worn out and frustrated. Not much seems to work and even if it does the side effects wind up being unbearable. My most recent med was Abilify, which I thought was working…well, then I started getting anxious, insomnia and this awful restless, jittery feeling like I could not sit still and wanted to crawl out of my skin. My counselor and psychiatrist told me it’s a phenomenon called “akathisia.” And it happens frequently on Abilify. Greeeeeeaaaat. Add to that the side effects I’ve had from Risperdal and I haven’t been doing too hot. So today at my appointment, my doc told me to go cold turkey. BYE-BYE ABILIFY! BYE-BYE RISPERDAL!

We’re going to go a week or so and then start me on a new med, Zyprexa. Risperdal, Abilify and Zyprexa are all in the “anti-psychotic” class of medication.

As a quick side note that is strange yet interesting and kind of gets me wondering, is that there are two classes of meds for bipolar “anti-psychotic” meds and “mood stabilizing” meds. The only psychiatric condition mood stabilizers treat, that I’m aware of, is bipolar. Anti-psychotics on the other hand, treat bipolar, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder. I queried my counselor about why I keep taking the anti-psychotic type of meds rather than mood stabilizers, and she told me that it isn’t uncommon for people who have bipolar with “schizophrenic features” to be treated in such a way. It has made me think even more about the link between schizophrenia and bipolar, and it’s definitely an area I will be doing more research. The fact that I respond more to anti-psychotic meds than mood stabilizing meds leads me to believe that schizophrenia and bipolar do indeed lie on a continuum and that people have varying degrees of illness and can have multiple overlapping symptoms.

Anyways, Zyprexa is next. I hope that it works but deep down I’m worried that I will have negative side effects like every other med. So far, the list of what I’ve tried, in order, is as follows:

Lamictal – no side effects, but also did nothing and didn’t prevent me from becoming manic again

Risperdal – made me start lactating (ew), increased emotional blunting and feelings of ambivalence, lack of sexual desire, foggy confused sensation

Seroquel – paranoid psychotic/suicidal reaction

Lithium – nausea, vomiting, unbearable headache, shakiness, lethargy, muscle aches

Abilify – akathisia, anxiety, insomnia

As you can see, it hasn’t been a fun 7 months. But I’m trying to stay positive.

Insomnia and apathy due to meds

Well, it's almost 1 am and I can't sleep so figured I would post an update. Winter has set in and we've had crazy weather, warm with freezing rain so for a few days, no one has been able to go anywhere. It's making me even more stir crazy than I already get in winter, which is bad. I got some natural light bulbs to put in the lamps here to help my mood and energy. I think it's working a bit, however, I don't think you are supposed to use them into the night hours, which may be why I have insomnia right now!

Currently I'm dealing with ambivalence/apathy in a big way. I believe part of it is my medication. Truthfully, I haven't felt like myself in a long long time. Most days I just feel sort of "there" and this has been going on many months now. It's a crappy feeling. I think I've been confusing some of the way I've been feeling with depression when in fact some of it has been effects of the medication. I'm on Risperdal and Abilify right now, and I am going to talk to my doc about going off the Risperdal totally. As a side story, it originally made my hormone levels high...so high I started producing milk as if I were pregnant. Ewwwww. (I always seem to get the rare side effects). So I am supposed to only be on it now as a "placeholder" for something else. We did a blood test of my prolactin levels (hormone that makes you produce milk) and the normal range is between 10-40ish. My levels were 150. So yeah...that alone makes it not the greatest med for me. Add to that, it makes me foggy, confused, unable to concentrate, unmotivated and just overall "blah" and you can see why I want to go off it. I really am tired of feeling this way. I am ready to get back to myself again...the me before meds. I don't know if I can without stopping them entirely. It's something I've been contemplating a lot.

Need to address buried issues

So I’ve been charting my moods again. I started doing this after I got out of the hospital but fell off the wagon because it’s one of those things you just forget to do. Well I’m back at it again at the suggestion of my psychiatrist and I’ve noticed that in general, over the past 2 weeks my mood has improved from severe depression to mild depression and even up to normal on some days. So I was thinking “Wow, this just keeps getting better!” And then I go and have a day like today. Ugh.

I’m feeling down today for personal reasons I don’t really want to get into. But all  of this has brought a lot of things to mind that I think I need to discuss with my counselor. As you know from my sidebar, I vlog on YouTube about living with bipolar, and I also watch others vids on bipolar and other issues that are pertinent to me, mainly other mental health topics. Anyhow, I was watching tonight and some videos really hit home to me and made me realize there is still a lot that is buried that I have not discussed with anyone. There are some things that I have basically kept to myself and tried to deal with, thinking it was something I could change or that I was just being weak. But now, I’m beginning to wonder if some of these issues stem from other emotional issues/areas and not from environmental factors like I’ve been believing. If that is indeed the case, there may be ways I can work on these issues instead of trying to muddle through with all these feelings and live with them by changing all the physical things around me.

Weather affecting my depression, and new meds

I’m on yet another new medication, for about the last week or so. This time it’s Abilify. I’m still on Risperdal as well, and I think the Abilify may actually be helping somewhat. Since I started it my depression has not seemed as bad. I don’t know if it’s actually doing something or I’m reading into things, (aka placebo effect), but I have felt pretty decent the past couple of days and I’m glad for that. We’ll see how long it lasts or if it continues.


Right now I am dealing with the onset of winter, and that is hard. It is cold, snowy and just generally bleary outside a lot. It hasn’t hit the bad part of winter…that won’t be for another month and a half when the temperatures hit -40 degrees F. UGH. I don’t think I’m going to handle it very well this year with all that I’m already dealing with. The cabin fever tends to overwhelm me and make me freak out, regardless of my mood, after awhile. I’m trying to be more active this winter though (as much as possible) by going out to concerts, sporting events, plays, movies, etc. at least once a week so that I get out among the human population and feel like I am a part of civilization. Truthfully, my husband and I are talking about moving next summer, if possible, back to Florida where we lived for the last few years. My moods were not drastic like they have been since I came back and I really believe the weather is having an impact on my moods, both manic and depressed. This may just be too extreme of a place for me to live anymore. Though I grew up here, since moving away and coming back, it seems much worse than it ever did before. So, we have the winter and spring to sit and decide what we would like to do, or try to do.


As for now I heard about this thing called the Happy Light, which is used for people with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It supposedly really works to help improve mood and energy and I’ve seen a lot of reviews of people who have used it, so, I figure it can’t hurt. This weekend I’m headed out to get my own and see how it goes.