Bipolar medication overview
Bipolar disorder is one of the most severe psychiatric disorders. Those who suffer from it usually goes from a period of mania and high energy at one moment to a period of severe depression the next moment. Heavier bipolar disorders can be difficult to treat and also expensive. Many bipolar disorder drug cost 15euros per pill and have to be taken on a daily basis because they have to treat both manic episodes and high depression at the same time.
Bipolar disorder is treated whit a combination of different anti-anxiety, antidepressant and mood stabilizers. The most commonly drug that is prescribed to someone who is diagnosed with this disorder is usually Lithium. It is used over a longer period of time to control manic behavior. Lithium can also be used in combination with anti-psychotic drugs. Watch out when using Lithium as it can be toxic in larger quantities. Ask your doctor to prescribe something else if you stop feeling well when using this drug. Instead of Lithium other drugs like Carbamazepine, Valproate and Divalproex Sodium among others are most often prescribed to patients who suffer from bipolar disorder. The last one of these is not recommended to women as it is known to increases their testosterone levels.
Another type of drugs used to treat bipolar disorder are anticonvulsants. Bipolar disorder often include seizures and convulsions so these drugs are widely prescribed as a part of bipolar disorder treatment. One of them, Lamictal has proven very effective in decreasing the number of episodes bipolar disorder can occur. For this reason it is very often used for longer period treatment of this disorder.
Psychotic behavior is usually treated with some of the anti-psychotic medications like Laloperidole. Drugs used to treat schizophrenia such as Kisperdal and Zylexa can too be prescribed to treat manic behavior episodes caused by bipolar disorder.
The usually prescribed antidepressant drugs are Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) and Tricyclic antidepressants (TSAs ). Benzodiazepines like Valium and Klonopin are prescribed for short term treatment. Be careful with these as they can be highly addictive. They need to be closely monitored to prevent this.
Treating bipolar disorder can take a lot of time and effort. Also, since it is often needed to treat several different symptoms different drugs can be prescribed at the same time and some of them can be very expensive, not to mention that many of them can have serious side effects. Using these medications on your own hand can be dangerous. You never know what side effect can manifest it self so they need to be monitored. Use only those drugs prescribed by a doctor and in the amount he or she tells you. It’s relatively easy to increase or decrease the dosage after consulting with the doctor. Today, more effective drugs with less side effects are being tested and sent to experimental stage every day.
There you have it, this short article was written with the idea to give you a short overview on various behavioral disorder drugs. I hope it was at least mildly helpful.