Bipolar Teenager

 a relative of mine who is a teenager became depressed and they took her to the emergency room. from there. she went to an Adolesent hopital. at the end of a week she was diagnosed as Bipolar . They gave her Lithium... she isnt taking it. She says it makes her feel bad.. Does anyone know what other medicines teen agers take for Bipolar???

hugs, Caren

My son takes lamictal and he has done very well on it.

My daughter is 12. We are currently waitiing for an adolecent PSY appt for Monday of next week. She announced that she has been feeling depressed last Sunday, and we took her to the primary care Dr ladt Tuesday. There she got into much greater detail about what she has been feeling and what she has been doing. The Dr. knew all the right questions to ask to lead the right information out and then she just started spilling her guts. At the end of the appt he said that he believes that she has bipolar of some sort and would accelerate the appt to see a PSY. My husband and I are both bipolar, so the chance of all my children having it is somewhere between 50-70%. (We didn't know we were bipolar when we married) He Dx with a general "mood disorder possable bipolar". Now we just hold our breath for the PSY appt.

Now that my daugher has her moods out in the open, she has become very verbal about every little thing. Wow, I would get whiplash if I was riding her rollercoaster! She has handed over the sharp things that she had arround to "prick" her finger when she felt anxious or sad or angery without being asked to do it. It seems that just getting her emotions out into the open has empowered her to start working to take control. But wow, she can cycle over hours or days from a hypo-manic-like aggitated, need-to-move state to a depressed, deflated, fatigued, morose, shortempered girl. She can start the day as one girl and be a diffrent on by lunchtime, or a mood might last several days (usually the down one is longer) Now that I know what to look for, I can look back and see that she has been like this for a few months.

I picked up several books that talked about adolecent and childhood bipolar and it explains that it cycles fast like this till they become older teens when it slows doen some. There are other diffrences. Iit sounds dumb, but I reccomend "Bipolar for Dummies" (yes, they have it for everything) and "Bipolar Demystified"

i am a bipolar teenager...im 19 now but when i was younger i was put into the maryland university for testing of lithium on children under 18.

when she says it makes her feel bad take her seriously i tried and tried to tell my mom and the doctors but they thought i was just trying to get off of the meds.
I had to be hospitalized because the lithium shut down my kidneys. they dont know why or how but for some people it can be really dangerous.

TY for taking her seriously. You're an awesome momma! She will thank you later. So many bipolar teens (like me) get ignored or written off by their parents. And the disease continues to progress in that time....