...But one thing they don't tell you about the blues when you got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't no end.
At least not for Lillian...
A controversial topic here, and I’m not taking sides one way or the other.
Who out there can claim a significant increase in quality of life based on the use of atypical antipsychotics? Atypical antipsychotics include the following medications:
Clozapine (Clozaril)
Risperidone (Risperdal)
Olanzapine (Zyprexa)
Quetiapine (Seroquel)
Ziprasidone (Geodon)
Aripiprazole (Abilify)
Paliperidone (Invega)
Sertindole (Serlect)
Zotepine
Amisulpride
Melperone
Almost all of us can point to negative affects from these medications. Weight gain, long-term health issues such as diabetes or thyroid problems, trembling hands, involuntary muscle movements, and other side effects. But I’m wondering if positive stories outweigh negative where atypicals are concerned.
Next, and don’t bite my head off here, if you need atypicals for occasional relief from anxiety, stress, or mania, would something else, perhaps even marijuana, give any temporary relief?
Next, are you on one of the bipolar disorder maintenance medications? I only know of 2 meds approved by the FDA for maintenance of bipolar disorder, Lithium and Lamictal. If you are not on one of these maintenance meds, is there a reason? Would they, perhaps, be ineffective against the particular flavor of bipolar disorder you have?
Please don’t think this will be used as a condemnation of psych meds, most of you know me better than that. I am truly interested in the responses, and plan to write about these responses, whichever side they fall on.
I would appreciate if you would fill out the polls then leave a comment with your honest response. I’m not interested in a laundry list of the meds you’ve been on, most of us have a long list. I’m interested in whether or not you’ve taken atypicals, and what atypicals have made an actual improvement in your quality of life. Don’t hesitate to answer anonymously if you would rather not be recognized. And please pass this link along to others so they can add their responses. It would be great to have a large number of responses so we can all benefit from this information.
Update: I've moved the polls to the right sidebar
Mom, Interrupted at Mercurial Mind Bipolar Blog talks about forecasting a mood swing by our voice and tone. She hit the nail on the head, based on this a change is coming for me. My wife mentioned it to me last night, I’ve been mouthy and sarcastic. Stay tuned, let’s see where this leads…
On a related note, I’ve left some biting and sarcastic comments on some of your blogs. They are not meant to be critical to the blogger who made the post, sorry if they sound that way.
We bought a new bike for my wife the other day. A very nice fitness/hybrid bike by Gary Fisher/Trek. She’s excited to ride, and it looks like she’ll be able to keep up with us now. For anyone who likes to bike, the difference between a Wal-Mart bike and a bike shop bike is HUGE.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to dynamically order a blogroll by clicks or popularity? Now that I ask this, I hear txandi saying "blog tweaks: as addictive as crystal meth."
I was listening to NPR the other day, actually, I listen to NPR every day, but the other day I heard an interview with a guy that wrote a book about understanding philosophy through jokes. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. Things like:
"3 ladies were sitting on a park bench. The first lady says "oy!" The second lady says "oy!" The third lady says "enough about the children already."
Or:
"The invisible man walks into a doctor’s office without an appointment. The nurse says ‘The doctor can’t see you now’"
I’ll let you know if the book is as good as I think it will be.
Everyone have a great weekend!
Thanks to those who sent emails recently. I'm OK, just haven’t been able to post or respond to comments, mainly due to stresses at work and home. Something about stress bottles up my motivation and creativity.
By necessity most of my time and efforts lately have been going to BipolarConnect. When you only have so much time, creativity, and energy, the deadlines there take priority. I have had a couple more posts published on HealthCentral’s BipolarConnect site. You can see them here and here. The last link will accept comments, if you get a chance jump on over and leave a comment. That helps me, and my boss at HealthCentral, a lot.
I hope everyone is doing well, and I’ll post back when I have enough motivation to move after work. In the meantime, if anyone is in crisis out there, somebody drop me an email and tell me who, so I can at least tell them I'm thinking of them.
I was asked what I'm looking to accomplish with the LivingBipolar site. The answer - I'm not really sure.
I started out wanting a way to quickly read through a long list of blogs. This it accomplishes very well.
Then, I added a little design to it.
Then, I decided to add news and resources to it. Once again, it works well.
Now, I stll have a hypomania going on with creative energy to spare and I'm thinking of other improvements I can make. When I was at work the other day I pulled up the site, saw the history entry and the title, and I realized I was showing my employer that I was visiting a site called "Living Bipolar". That's when I started thinking about a site without the word "bipolar" in the title.
And a little clarification. BipolarConnect is a major global health care website, a competitor of sites like WebMD. They invited me to be an "expert patient" on that site, and write regular columns for them. I'm honored to be a part of that, and don't want to do anything that could be considered a conflict of interest.
So hopefully that's a little clarification.
On the LivingBipolar site, I don’t see enough benefit – yet. I’d like to increase the benefit without duplicating the ideas of sites like HealthCentral’s BipolarConnect, which might be a conflict of interest given my relationship with Bipolar Connect. One of my primary purposes in building the site, besides an outlet for my hypomania, is to increase traffic to all of our blogs. The thinking being if we could bring in people who might not take the time to seek out our individual blogs, "click-throughs" to our blogs would result.
Here’s thoughts of a rough "to do" list at this time:
A mirror site where the name does not include "bipolar" so our browser history does not show "bipolar". This might be good for work or public computers.I’m always open to ideas or suggestions.
A bipolar wiki of some sort.
An open group blog where anyone can post.
Displaying blog comments from within the site (but you’d have to click-through to make a comment)
A message board or chat room.
I don’t like to get political on this blog, but today's headlines are just too inviting. I’m not going to publish a stance one way or another, but I may comment:
Obama’s My Space Controversy
US Soldiers Can’t Blog or Email Without Approval
"Mother Hen, this is the rooster. I am in the sandbox. I repeat..."
Joan Baez Banned By Walter Reed Hospital
Who says the public has a short memory?
FDA Seeks Anti Depressant Warning
We’ve known it was coming…
Vatican Calls Comedian's Verbal Attack On Pope 'Terrorism'
This Italian comedian will REALLY be heckled.
Rally Ends With Clash Between Marchers, Police
"There is evidence that officers knocked reporters to the ground, used batons on photographers and damaged cameras, possibly motivated by anger over journalists photographing efforts by officers to control the movements of marchers," an RTNA (Radio and Television News Association of Southern California) statement said.And video.
"Digg deleted my hard drive for posting the HD-DVD KEY! Now my hard drive refuses to write in binary. I get Error Code: 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 . Oh, noz."
