The Perfect (Medication) Cocktail

click to read DeeDee’s bio

It seems like almost everyone who has been under long-term psychiatric care has embarked on a quest for the Holy Grail: the perfect medication cocktail. And it also seems like a lot of people never find it.

But I’m pleased to discover–my therapist and psych nurse both concur–that I’ve finally found mine. It treats a biological failure to produce enough of a couple critical substances: dopamine and progesterone.

My perfect cocktail includes sinus treatments, a slew of vitamins and supplements, a couple of psychoactive drugs, low-dose naltrexone, and progesterone (not pictured).

I’ve known for years that dopamine was to blame for my mood and attention issues because only dopaminergic drugs ever helped. But there’s no “dopamine deficiency disorder” in the DSM, so they’ve labeled me with ADHD and Major Depressive Disorder. Although Wellbutrin XL and Adderall XR is a bad combo for most people–it makes them anxious, wired, and twitchy–it’s exactly what I need.

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The Real Deal Versus Generics in Psychoactive Meds

Recently the FDA announced that Teva’s generic version of Wellbutrin XL (budeprion) was not in fact an equivalent medication, pulling it from the market. This is sort of a landmark thing; all kinds of authorities of various sorts (doctors, pharmacists, regulators, hobos) will insist that generics and brand name medications are the “same.” They are not. They are the same in some respects, but can be meaningfully different in other respects. I’m not going to go into those details at the moment, however, because I’ll go off on a rant and I do have another point to make.

There is hope

I just wanted to say a few things about hope and the road to recovery.

All of your hard work and patience will pay off eventually. I’m not saying that it is easy but as long as you have at least in the back of your mind that you really want to get better, then you will.

There are days when you will think there is no hope, I am hopeless and helpless but ever so gradually you will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like I say, it just takes time and determination.

A Pictorial History of My Bipolar Meds

Medications are a major part of managing many mental illnesses, but something the general population has a hard time understanding. I’m not even talking about the issues of stigma, accepting “meds for life”, or side effects. I’m just talking about the process of finding the right cocktail to function as normally as possible. It’s hard to grasp without a good example, so here’s the history of my meds over the last two years (keeping in mind that I’ve been on psych meds for over 20 years!)

Back in hospital

* Talk of self-harm and suicide *

So here I am, I’ve been back in the hospital for just under two weeks.

The BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), depression, insomnia and anxiety is extremely venemous. I can’t start to explain the turmoil I am going through. The constant death wishes, then the wanting to live moments. I am all over the place.

Rehabilitation after hospitalisation

Nearly two years ago, I had a mental breakdown. I struggled for 8 months going to therapy and trying several different medications before things became too serious and unbearable and so I went in to hospital. During these 8 months prior to hospitalisation, things snowballed out of control. I was self-harming and committing self-destructive acts and generally toiling with my own life. It was probably only a matter of time until something serious would have happened to me so I am thankful to my psychologist and to myself, that we could see that I couldn’t continue on and we needed something to change big time.