Bipolar Meds Must Achieve Four Goals

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persistence
December 29, 2017 - 10:33 am
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persistence
Total Posts: 1532
Joined: 08-11-2012
Now, that my psychiatrist has added Prozac (fluoxetine) to my medication cocktail, I feel dramatically better, but with some side-effects that are not entirely helpful.

First, I should explain something I learned this week from Great Britain's National Institutes of Health (NIH) in an article about treating bipolar illness with medications, entitled "THE MEDICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT OF BIPOLAR DISORDER – PART I"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/b...

There are four (4) different objectives a bipolar medication regime must accomplish. Doctors have not found any one medication that accomplishes all four goals.

Bipolar illness is a condition of dangerous peaks and dangerous valleys for the person with the illness. That is why it is called “bipolar” disorder. It’s an illness of opposite extremes.

Not all bipolar people are in grave danger at both extremes, but all are in danger in at least one of the extremes.

Many bipolar people first get treatment for their illness in a psychiatric hospital, unless they are diagnosed and treated before their illness gets that bad. Bipolars often first get treatment because they are in a clinical depression or because they are in mania, or both at once.

The medications that treat bipolar disorder have to accomplish four basic things:

(1) make the symptoms of depression go away and

(2) prevent depression from returning,

(3) make the symptoms mania go away and

(4) prevent mania from returning.

A snow-blower can push snow away, but cannot prevent it from returning. An oil change can improve lubrication in a car, but it cannot prevent poor lubrication from returning. It has to be done over and over again.

Catastrophically, science has not found any one medication that can accomplish those four goals listed above, just as auto manufacturers have not yet invented a car seat that also serves a windshield, a seat belt, and front and rear bumpers. In any case, none of these last forever.

So distinct parts have to be found and assembled to accomplish all of these tasks. Just as with cars, many parts are available, but not all are mutually compatible.

If this seems complex and baffling, then you are beginning to understand the challenges of treating bipolar illness.

Prozac, when combined with two other medications, helps me on two poles of bipolarity. It drives away the sadness, despair and suicidality of depression. It also makes me too lazy to be manic (except for prodigious writing).


I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me.
Spam? Offensive?
persistence
persistence
December 29, 2017 - 10:33 am
Now, that my psychiatrist has added Prozac (fluoxetine) to my medication cocktail, I feel dramatically better, but with some side-effects that are not entirely helpful.

First, I should explain something I learned this week from Great Britain's National Institutes of Health (NIH) in an article about treating bipolar illness with medications, entitled "THE MEDICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT OF BIPOLAR DISORDER – PART I"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/b...

There are four (4) different objectives a bipolar medication regime must accomplish. Doctors have not found any one medication that accomplishes all four goals.

Bipolar illness is a condition of dangerous peaks and dangerous valleys for the person with the illness. That is why it is called “bipolar” disorder. It’s an illness of opposite extremes.

Not all bipolar people are in grave danger at both extremes, but all are in danger in at least one of the extremes.

Many bipolar people first get treatment for their illness in a psychiatric hospital, unless they are diagnosed and treated before their illness gets that bad. Bipolars often first get treatment because they are in a clinical depression or because they are in mania, or both at once.

The medications that treat bipolar disorder have to accomplish four basic things:

(1) make the symptoms of depression go away and

(2) prevent depression from returning,

(3) make the symptoms mania go away and

(4) prevent mania from returning.

A snow-blower can push snow away, but cannot prevent it from returning. An oil change can improve lubrication in a car, but it cannot prevent poor lubrication from returning. It has to be done over and over again.

Catastrophically, science has not found any one medication that can accomplish those four goals listed above, just as auto manufacturers have not yet invented a car seat that also serves a windshield, a seat belt, and front and rear bumpers. In any case, none of these last forever.

So distinct parts have to be found and assembled to accomplish all of these tasks. Just as with cars, many parts are available, but not all are mutually compatible.

If this seems complex and baffling, then you are beginning to understand the challenges of treating bipolar illness.

Prozac, when combined with two other medications, helps me on two poles of bipolarity. It drives away the sadness, despair and suicidality of depression. It also makes me too lazy to be manic (except for prodigious writing).


I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me.

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