Defying the Meds Establishment

Posted on August 30, 2007 in Bipolar Disorder Psychotropics

I’ve never had the problem of not taking the meds once I got up the courage to pick up the phone and make an appointment to be seen by a psychiatrist about fourteen years ago. One morning I woke up, turned to my wife and said “I’m sick.” Within a few weeks, I was on [[Prozac]] and taking part in a group about how to live through depression at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Redwood City. It would be eleven years before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

I’ve had the [[lithium carbonate|lithium]] shakes, the [[Depakote]] bloat, nausea, muscle spasms, and more. I trembled in fear at the thought that my [[Lamictal]] would give me a case of [[Stevens-Johnson syndrome]]. (It didn’t) Still I discovered that there always was another medication to try, that the contemporary pharmocological toolbox is vast.

Maybe you aren’t the same.

Bipolarcentral.com has a new page which speaks to the issue of deciding not to take your meds. It’s filled with anecdote upon anecdote by bipolar sufferers who decided they would wing it or only use the meds when they felt bad. It’s filled with the kinds of stories that I have come to hear quite a bit in support groups, but goes beyond the mere approbations by delivering answers and solutions to the typical objections for not taking your meds.

Demanding herbal remedies instead of “artificial” ones is an excuse some people employ:

if someone chooses not to take a prescribed medication that is intended to control their depression, and opts instead to take the natural supplement St. John’s Wart, they are taking two major risks.

The biggest risk is that the supplement will not work to really control their depression. In this case the individual; will continue to get worse, maybe even suicidal. [[St. John’s Wort]] is intended to control “normal” depressions; however, [[Bipolar Disorder]] involves a chemical imbalance in the brain whereby depression is only half the battle, and is definitely not like a “normal” depression.

The second risk is that the supplement can react badly in their system, causing even more problems than the original ones they started with. Again, this could be because this supplement is trying to treat a “normal” depression, instead of a chemically induced depression.

The desperation we feel from having this disease and the stigma we set ourselves against (I am talking about the inner stigma), leads us to jump for any alternative to meds that suggests itself. The Bipolarcentral.com page does a fine job of answering many common challenges to the need to take medications. I don’t normally advertise such sites, but this one is worth an hour or so of your time both for yourself and for others.

[tags]psychotropics, depression, mania, bipolar disorder[/tags]