managing bipolar and depression without medication
Posted by cashafrass on May 03, 2007 · Member since Apr 2007 · 92 posts
(boy)friend currently takes prozac for bipolar but has more depressive and anxious leanings than manic ones. in my opinion it really doesn't work for him and he agrees. I think it is going to be time to try something different. anyone had success in managing moods and brain chemicals with diet, exercise, acupuncture, talk therapy, etc. etc. ?
thank you!
I would be very careful about simply stopping antidepressants. For this reason I would say try "talk therapy" in conjunction with whatever else he decides on. At the very least, he'll have a professional to monitor any symptoms that might crop up. As for medication in general, here's what I was told when I was using SSRIs for OCD: sometimes Prozac stops working if you've been taking it for a while. Your body sort of builds up resistance to it and it just doesn't do what its supposed to. I tried two other SSRIs and they were worse, so I stopped taking them altogether. One thing to be aware of is that not only do these drugs take a long time to clear your system, but it also takes your own hormones a while to recalibrate. I took them for about 2-3 yrs. before stopping last August, and I'm just now feeling back to "normal." There will probably be just as many side effects of coming off the medication as there were going on it. Hope this helps.
I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder in 2005 and became a guinnea pig to the drug industry to see what worked and what didn't. Anti-depressants were the worst, some mood stabilizers seemed to do nothing at all, hardcore sleeping pills were a necessity, and lithium worked the best and most predictably, but had some side effects that made me a little nervous (plus regular blood tests for toxicity.
Right around Christmas of 2007, I decided if I had to take 1 more pill, I would vomit all over the kitchen. So I stopped and never looked back (definitely not what doctors will recommend, but my doctors are aware of my decision). At the same time, I am highly aware of myself and have close friends and family that will let me know if I seem to not be myself. I even tested them by not telling them I had quit my medication just for a while to see if they said I seemed different.
I guess I had just gotten back to my normal self with the help of lithium and had the strength to go it alone. I went vegan a couple months ago and I have noticed incredible changes---I'm calmer, happier, sleep better, and when I do get angry or upset, it passes quickly. I am very convinced that the hormones in the foods I was eating were contributing to my problems.
NOTE: when I stopped my antidepressants under the supervision of my psychiatrist, I had to wean myself off, and even so, I had what I recall as the worst week of my life ever. Looking back, it wasn't so bad, but I sure felt horrible. For one week. Now I feel great!
What has liberated or eased me of depression (runs in my family) is a less processed and refined diet.
More raw foods, especially raw fresh fruit and veg juice (I found a juicer, just my luck!), try 20oz of juice in the morning in replace of coffee. And of course incorporating the celtic sea salt into my daily diet. I would like to experiment with ginko.
I myself tend to have bipolar tendancies...but not so bad as to be considered a "disorder". I have had doctors suggest that I may have bipolar type II when I was in Alaska, but at that was becasue I had S.A.D. really bad up there and couldn't stop crying....long story....
But I found that I can manage it fairly well by excercising and diet. If I eat crap, I feel like crap. And paying for a gym membership works well for me because I am a tight wad, and hate spending money, so if I am paying for it, I will definatley use it! But those two things have worked very well for me.
BP has a STRONG genetic component; that's why medication is so effective. but MEDS ARE A MUST!!!
Out of the 100+ people I know with severe-mild bipolar disorder, medication has helped 0. You're very right that it takes a proper balance of drugs to be effective. An exact mg of this, some mg of that, blah blah blah. It's physically exhausting, and down right dangerous, to be pumped full of different drugs all the time. If/when my disorder becomes un-manageable, maybe I will be forced to ingest medication. But until then, the natural methods and cognitive behavorial therapy work loads better than experimenting with disgusting drug cocktails.
I agree. I am supposedly b/p so I get some lead way to talk about it…. I was diagnosed with b/p at 19 - was just a baby - but I took their meds for 3 years and stopped. The doctor said, and I quote, "it may be 5 years or it may be 15 years but you'll be back." Extremely scary to do, but I did it, made it passed 15 years! and proved HE IS A LIAR!
Today I am very grateful that my body is not a chemical speakeasy for doctors to play experimental jazz in. They do not want you better, they want you sick, they have no clue how to treat you, they are experimenting!, and that is a fact. Of all the people I know diagnosed with b/p, meds have truly helped NONE OF THEM. They all go off meds, then get afraid and manic and then depressed and lonely and go back to the doctor and start meds again, ALL OF THEM. It is like they are in a bad, abusive relationship and you cant tell them to LEAVE! If the meds “worked” they would never go off them to go through the cycle again and again. If I had a real illness that real doctors could treat with meds that really worked, I WOULD TAKE THE MEDS not go off of them every few months and get hospitalized again and again! Thank god I don’t.
What I have is a problem facing life, on a moment to moment basis. Life presents challenges, I have to respond. When I do in ways that exalt me or beat me down, through conditioned thinking, then I have to see that I am living an illusion. I exercise, do acupressure, meditate, write, talk with others, try to help others with mental illness, and these things seem to work. Most of all, I enjoy life, I pay attention, I love others. Why not, we are all here together?!
In life there is a lot of acceptance of frustrations and anger, resentments and things. This is pain, LIFE IS PAINFUL, I have to accept it or die, plain and simple. But, guess what, this is life, not bi-polar! If I can respond to life’s challenges without isolation and without pretending I am either captain america or the elephant man, I have a chance. If I can’t, I will have to go to the speakeasy and get drunk…… Which brings me to another observation: all manic depressives I have met either drink, smoke or both - I did. I have seen AA provide more help with most of them than any psych doctor ever could. If you are diagnosed with bi polar and you drink or smoke cigarettes, try learning how to not drink and not smoke, and love yourself and life, it works wonders!
Today I am very grateful that my body is not a chemical speakeasy for doctors to play experimental jazz in. They do not want you better, they want you sick, they have no clue how to treat you, they are experimenting!, and that is a fact.
I'm sorry but this is so fucking insulting and wrong it is untrue. How dare you say that doctors want you sick!?! Of course they don't. As a healthcare professional I find this incredibly rude and disgusting.
Ok you may not agree with taking meds (personally I try to avoid them wherever possible), but that is no reason to attack healthcare workers and say that they actually WANT you to be sick. FFS.
Today I am very grateful that my body is not a chemical speakeasy for doctors to play experimental jazz in. They do not want you better, they want you sick, they have no clue how to treat you, they are experimenting!, and that is a fact.
I'm sorry but this is so fucking insulting and wrong it is untrue. How dare you say that doctors want you sick!?! Of course they don't. As a healthcare professional I find this incredibly rude and disgusting.
Ok you may not agree with taking meds (personally I try to avoid them wherever possible), but that is no reason to attack healthcare workers and say that they actually WANT you to be sick. FFS.
No need to curse and yell. The fact is, psychiatry and pharmaceutical corps are a big business, together, and there is very little, if any healing going on. A psych does not want to talk with you, he wants to get you on chemicals and come back for bloods tests monthly for the rest of your life. They want you on their treadmill and the profit plenty from it while many suffer. I am sorry if this upsetting to you, or perhaps you are profiting from this game?? But I have found this to be 100% true. They have convinced themselves of their altruistic motives, but at the end of the day they claim to have solutions for people but offer no or very little help and get rich, which are facts.
To clarify, I did not implicate all healthcare workers. So we need to be clear here. I was talking specifically about psych doctors and their collusion with big pharma. While to say that they "want it" may be strong, they are most certainly impotent and indifferent to it. The profit motive is extremely powerful to the subconscious, especially when you can offer nothing but chemical experiments to those who suffer. I hope this helps a bit, as you seemed to take things quite personally and got very upset, which was not the intent. The intent was quite opposite: offer hope to those whom modern medicine has so clearly failed, ie the mentally ill.
Finally, Shelloid, I would like to briefly add that if we cannot keep some level of civility through this discussion, then I must refuse to participate. I offer others respect, both online and off, and deserve the same in return, especially in matters as serious as this thread. Thank you.
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