Meds that cause "instant old age"? Sign me up!
I had my quarterly head check yesterday -- my second run-in with my new psych.
The three months since my last check have been weird ones, but all's well that ends well. I'm in "happy fun fun la la land." (Thanks for that perfect description, Chris. Sorry you feel left in the dirt.) I've gone from not sleeping and not eating to ... awesome. I have the best friends in the world. "You guuuys!"
Even though making new friends and spending time with old friends is out of character for me, I don't feel manic and don't have any classic mania symptoms. In fact, it's a great feeling. I'm not hiding under the covers all day anymore. But my inability to vocalize that on the spot left the psych thinking maybe I was toeing the mania line, so we compromised that I could stay on my regular meds and add a medium dose of Depakote.
Went to the pharmacy to drop off the scripts and decided to get the lowdown on Depakote while I waited. So I got comfortable and hit up my favorite neuro-meds site, Crazy Meds. I read the entire page for pros and cons, then alighted on this graf:
Depakote's Typical Side Effects: The usual for anticonvulsants plus a special set for valproates: instant old age. You'll get fat, bald, tired, confused, uninterested in sex, unable to hold your liquor and everything will give you heartburn and/or the runs.Are you serious?
I messaged Matt and he wrote back, "And you didn't even think you were manic to begin with. Side effects are worse than mania." There's a reason he's already nicknamed Depakote "Dookiepoop." He's right. There's no way I can justify taking something that I might not even need when the side effects overshadow the success of the drug itself.
Someday, I'm not going to need any of these anymore, and I don't think that day is too far away. Till then, why fix what's not broken?
posted by Kate at 11:33 PM
Copyright 2001-2009, L.K.C.S. It's MINE, all MINE. If you wanna use it, gimme credit and a link, okies? And don't run with scissors, because you're just going to poke somebody's eye out with that thing. No, really. 
8 Comments:
I guess my biggest problem with the situation is that the doctor spent some time with you, asked you how you felt - you tell him the story.
If you are being manic - it's not the bad manic where you go buy cars and shit. The worst part was the not sleeping/ not eating (which isn't great).
So instead of saying - lets monitor this, he wants to go and put you on MORE medications, when the lamictadal seems to have been working pretty well.
I dunno - on one hand - being willing to try something new is a good thing. But the lamictadal is working well and to proscibe another medication with unbelievable shitty side-effects for what may or may not be a problem is stupid. And the kicker is - it was for "short-term."
The "short-term" Ability (more like debilify amirite?) period really sucked, i can't imagine the what the short-term on Depakote would be like.
For the record - i don't like hte dookiepoop nickname. It's too in your face. We need a nickname that is more subtle and plays off the name better.
Your "Abilify/Debilify" joke loses something when you misspell "Abilify." >_<
I think Dookiepoop is more original than Depabloat, though Depabloat plays off the name better.
Also, I've been on Lamictal *four* years and nobody's come up with a good nickname for that. Get on that, will ya?
Woops. >_< indeed
How about Depakold? Depabloat is pretty good though.
Lamictal doesn't get a derogatory nickname because it's been pretty good for you. So - it's harder to come up with a name that conveys how shitty it is (because its not)
Maybe Lamizheimers >_<
Aww, why does everyone make fun of my horrible memory? It's just one of the problems that comes with anticonvulsants.
The effect is bad enough with Lamictal alone or Xanax alone, but double-dose me and there's no way in hell I'm going to remember this conversation in the morning. Add in *anything* else (Ambien, for one), and it's a blackout.
Yeah, it's annoying when I can't remember stupid stuff like what we talked about last night or where I left this or that, but it totally can be used to your advantage: "Don't you remember promising me you'd (fill in the blank)?" or "I'm so glad you agree with me about (fill in the blank)."
... Not that anyone would take advantage of me that way, right?
Those side effects are pretty horrible. It's like he prescribed you meth or something.
Hey, instant old age sounds like loads of fun. Doesn't sound like this doc is the greatest?
If I recall correctly, you also have Bipolar II, right?
I was on Depakote for six months and hated it. Managed to gain 50 pounds in six months and felt miserable almost all of the time. Lamictal helps take the edge off, but I still have bouts of rage after coming out of a downswing (which are thankfully much shorter now).
De: Yep. Bipolar 2.
Been on Lamictal four years with relatively little problem. My bouts of rage come when I'm coming off Xanax/Klonopin. I can be moody any time, but don't even think about crossing me when I'm coming down. :D
And thanks for the first-hand word on Depakote. Nice to know someone's been there and hated it so I don't feel so bad about skipping it.
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