Feeling Stigmatized by Your Medications?

When it comes to treating an ailing heart, a damaged liver, or some other organ that’s malfunctioning, medication is rarely considered optional. When the brain is ill, however, you can find plenty of people who discourage the use of medications to treat it. There seems to be a widely held, unspoken belief that brains don’t [...]

Posted on August 8, 2008 Filed Under Medications, Stigma | 3 Comments

Improving the Effectiveness of Your Antidepressant

As we pointed out in previous posts, antidepressants may be less effective in treating bipolar depression than in treating unipolar depression. However, there are steps you can take to improve the effectiveness of your antidepressant regardless of the type of depression you’re feeling:

Posted on May 15, 2008 Filed Under Bipolar Depression, Medications, Side effects | 2 Comments

Can My Bipolar Medication Be Increasing My Anxiety?

A visitor to the Bipolar Blog asked this question: “Do some medications used to treat bipolar disorder actually cause anxiety attacks as a side effect?”
This is an interesting question and one that I hear quite often often. I always explain that even if I have never seen a certain side effect from a medication in [...]

Posted on May 11, 2008 Filed Under Medications, Side effects | 1 Comment

Strategies for Treating Bipolar Depression

Mood stabilizers are usually effective in treating acute mania. Treating bipolar depression, however, is often more challenging for two reasons:

Antidepressants tend to be less effective in treating bipolar depression than in treating unipolar depression, especially in people who have the Bipolar I diagnosis (characterized by severe episodes of depression alternating with manic episodes).
Antidepressants carry some [...]

Posted on May 8, 2008 Filed Under Bipolar Depression, Medications, Treatment | 2 Comments

Beware of Diagnosis by Prescription

Recently on Yahoo! Answers, a member posted a question asking whether bipolar disorder can be misdiagnosed as depression. This is an excellent question, and it made me think that we should post something on this important issue.
The answer is yes; bipolar disorder can be and often is misdiagnosed as depression. This could be a very [...]

Posted on April 3, 2008 Filed Under Bipolar Depression, Diagnosis, Medications | 12 Comments

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