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medpundit |
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Wednesday, September 25, 2002... the number of drugs used and the combinations that are possible are mind-boggling: There are the other anticonvulsants, including Tegretol, Lamictal, Neurontin and Topomax. There are the antipsychotics Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel and Geodon. And there are the antidepressants, like Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil and Celexa, as well as Effexor and Serzone. And guess what: I've tried most of them over the past seven years, often multiple times in different combinations with a range of reactions from severe to benign. "It's trial and error," one doctor after another has blithely told me each time a medication has run amok through my system and, sometimes, my life. This even included the doctor who put me on Lamictal, which resulted in vomiting, flu-like symptoms and eventually a body rash and lips so swollen they looked like they'd been pumped full of collagen. For other bipolar people, Lamictal works very well. Unfortunately, the state of the art is trial and error with this and with many other chronic diseases. Someday we might have the means to design treatment specifically for each individual based on their genetic map, but that day has not yet arrived. I would admonish her for being so disdainful of her physicians and their efforts to treat her, but then, she’s bipolar, she probably can’t help herself. posted by Sydney on 9/25/2002 06:34:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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