hypomania?

Hello all,

i usually post on the anxiety and ulcerative colitis forums, but I have a situation that I thought you all could proably help me with. I have been taking 75mg of Wellbutrin to treat my anxiety and mild depression for the last few months. I've also made some dietary changes, and have been feeling much better. I went to see my doctor the other day and she said she thought I should push my dosage up to 100mg since I've had occasional "breakthrough" depression. I was hesitant because for the most part I was feeling okay, but on Thursday morning I pushed my dose up to 100mg. Since then I've been feeling very strange. I feel hyperactive and have noticed a strange mood swing that seems to come and go throughout the day. I'll feel pretty normal for a few hours, then out of nowhere I'll start to feel depressed for a few hours then I'll feel hyper and weird for a few hours, and the cycle just keeps going like that all day. I should also mention that the hyperactive phase is always accompanied by anxiety and rapid heart beat. The thing that is freaking me out though, is that when I'm hyper I've also noticed racing thoughts. The other thing is that sometimes when the thoughts are racing I'll think of words that rhyme, or when someone else says a sentence where words start with the same letters I'll notice that too, and then I'll feel like I"m going to panic.

I should mention that part of my anxiety is paranoia about health/mental health and I have a bit of OCD, and I've read on the internet before that the rhyming words and illiteration can be signs of mania, so there's a chance that I could just be freaking myself out since I'm going through a medication adjustment and feel strange anyway. Even though I think these strange thoughts, I don't say them out loud. I've talked to a handful of close friends about this, and they all say that I seem normal. When I'm around friends or family and am distracted, I notice that I forget to look for signs of possible medication side effects and feel pretty normal. But as soon as I'm alone again I start to freak out that I might be slightly manic. I haven't been thinking about doing anything risky or putting myself in jeopardy or anything like that.

What do you all think? Does this sound like just anxiety, or should I be concerned that it may be more of a hypomania? I'm going to call my doctor on monday and see what she thinks. Thanks everyone,

Laura

Hi Laurar,

Welcome to our board!

I think Sukay's got it right. I think nothing's going to help but to call your doctor and get the answer from her. So in the meantime try and relax. Whatever it is, a mild form of hypomania or a bout of anxiety, the real way to handle it is to try and relax through it. Getting overwrought will prolong it. What are some things you do that are relaxing?

I've never had the word tricks with my hypomania, but it's different for everyone. I find that fascinating.

Let us know what your doc says.

serafena

An update: I just got off the phone with my doc. She feels like since I have no history of BP and because the symptoms seem to have gone away that the whole thing was just a medication adjustment. She said she's seen all kinds of reactions from patients to medication adjustments and that I should just relax and not let my anxiety get too major about the situation. She said if the symptoms come back then I should call her and we can re-evaluate. We also decided I'd go back down to the dose of 75mg per day, since I seemed to do better in general on that. I feel good about this assessment and much less anxious.

Thanks to all those who helped me with this! You're all amazing for staying strong even though you deal with so much.

((((((((all of you)))))))))

Laura