lithium alternatives?

Welcome to the board Toodle

What side effects are you experiencing?

I've tried doing a search which came up with Tegretol (carbamazepine) but you really need to speak to your doc as I do not know about meds. I'm sure they will understand that it's imparing your quality of life. They might give you an alternative or they might give you something else to combat the lithiums side effects.

Let us know how you get on , take care ,

Smiler

i have read thru most of the post and am also wondering do most people with BP end up unable to work? i know i have gone thru several jobs in the past several years for what i now know to be problems associated with my BP. it is kinda scary to think that it can impair me like that. i also worry the my kids will suffer from this. i pray every day that they don't!!

I know of a woman named Kay Jamison who has bipolar disorder.  She is also a professor of Psychology at John's Hopkins University.   She wrote a book called "The Unquiet Mind" about her struggles with bipolar disorder.  Teaching at an Ivy league school is a pretty big deal, yet she does it despite the biplar condition.

I have bipolar disorder and will be graduating from college in a month.  I have been going to school full time, and working part-time.  Every summer I have been working full time.  I plan to work full time once I am done with school.  Already I have an interview lined up for a promising job that pays very well.  For the past four years I have been on a mood stabilzer that has kept me stable..

People would not know that I had bipolar disorder unless I told them.  I told a professor that I had bipolar disorder and she was absolutely shocked.  She said that she would have never of geussed, and that I was functioning normal.  I told a close friend that I have bipolar disorder and her jaw literally dropped open.  Then she spent the next few minutes asking me if I was joking.

It is possible for your son to have a promissing future.  Make sure you get him the medical help he needs now.  Find a good psychiatrist that your son is able to relate to.  Also, make sure that he gets on an effective mood stabilizer.  Bipolar is a condition that can be managed and it is not a life sentence to misery.

My husband has not been able to work productively in over two years and was disagnosed BP 16 months ago.  He is now trying to get on disability and is only 49 years old.  He is truly mentally disabled.  He has made under 10K in the last 2 years combined, although he workd full time, and is better off staying at home.  He can't handle being self-employed any longer.

His memory is greatly impaired.  He cannot find anything he put away. His thinking does not follow a logical progession.  This makes me wonder how much the severity of the cases can vary.  Maybe he has a particularly severe case.

I just pray that the SSI comes through.  We hired a company to handle the claim for us.  He can't think well enough to do it, and I'm under too much stress already.  It won't be much money, but it will be way more than he makes now.  I'm a public school teacher in a low-paying area.  Thank goodness our plae is paid for, and the vehicles.

Perhaps if he can get stable and remain stable he can go back to work.  Remaining stable is the big problem right now.  The medicines work great for a while and then it is as if he becomes immune to them.