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Scopolamine Offers Hope for Manic-Depressives
Give Us The Patch or a Shot

Scopolamine Offers New Hope for BiPolars
From Scientist, Interrupted

I had vaguely heard of this last week, and the thing that intrigues me most is the skin patch administration. If the gastro-intestinal side effects of my meds could be eliminated...or better still, if a patch could last for a period of days, that would be a *tremendous* boon...

After my episode last week (and trust me, it was a goddamn lulu, on par with my first break but slightly less scary because now I know what I've got and slightly more scary because it gave me a real sense of futility about the illness...) I am *terrified* to have another break. But pill meds...are so complicated. You have to take them every day, and in my case, you have to take two different sets, one in the morning, one in the evening.

This very morning, I couldn't find my pill box. I have just added 5mg of Abilify to my daily regimen, which also includes 1200mg of lithium and 10 mg of Lexapro. I got two weeks worth of Abilify and loaded up the pill box, then mislaid it. This morning, I couldn't find it and I began to panic. Rage attack came on fairly quickly after that. Sucks...

I found them eventually, but by then I had elevated heart rate, anxiety, anger, blah blah blah. I called my doctor and told him, "Fuck side effects, I'm taking the whole day's dose in the mornings," because while it's *easy* to remember taking pills in the morning (you feel weird if you don't) it's hard to remember at night and I *frequently* accidentally "skip" my evening meds because I just forget. That certainly was the cause of last week's episode.

Improvements in meds are great. Improvements in administration - I keep telling my doctor I "want Norplant for lithium" (with a shot once a year) - would be even better.

posted by by gregoryp(tm) aka Gregory Pleshaw @ 7:07 AM