Mom of 3, I am diagnosed with Major Depression not Bipolar Disorder and take a medication for Bipolar/Seizures. It is Lamictal. I tried all types of antidepressants and did not find anything that helped me not be depressed. This does the best of anything I have found. My insurance does pay for most of it. However, I don't know if it has approval everywhere to treat Major Depression so that may be an insurance glitch. I have not had weight gain (nor loss, dern it, nor issues with libido). I still feel depressed but I am able to function with the depression where as before I stayed in the bed almost 24/7. I've tried seroquel, trazadone, effexor, cylexa, wellbutrin, prosac, abilify, oh the list goes on....Effexor worked but I kept telling the doctors I was having these brain zaps, they told me I was crazy - a neurologist, psychiatrist and general practitioner. It is very important that you take that medication each day at the same time!!!!!! I called the pharmaceutical company eventually-they called it battery head or brain shivers. It's real and it happens, but only when I wasn't taking it at the same time. I never made the correlation. When I was getting off of it, it took me twice as long to get off of it and the brain shivers continued until 4 months later. It is not a side effect that everyone has.
Mom of 3, I know it feels like we are guinea pigs, but considering there is not much knowledge about the brain and how it works and that meds for other conditions work the same way - some find on the first try a med that lowers blood pressure, it took my dad three different ones to find one that worked. So don't give up the ship! I also have read about alternative medicine, but I'm to chicken to try it, though I do take fish oil for cholesterol and it has some mood stabilizing effects.
Okay, I'm done now. I'm just bored.
