New Medication?
 

Well I had my psychiatrist appointment yesterday and once I told her I was feeling depressed she prescribed me a new medication.
So now I'm on Epival (Depakote for you Americans out there) and Celexa. I was told that since I'm bipolar there's a very real chance that the Celexa will make me manic instead of stable and that my mood stabilizer won't be able to hold it back. If that happens I'll be admitted to the hospital.

I was wondering if anyone knew how long it would be until I knew if that was going to happen or not. Is it going to be 4-6 weeks like it takes for the medication to work or is it a shorter time period?
I'd just like to know when I can stop worrying so much about it :nosweat:

Re: New Medication?
 

well it honestly depends on what your asking, so if your asking when you will notice that this medication isnt working and your having manic episodes, then it depends on the person, how their body handles the medication, it can take a day, it can take weeks,months it can even take a few hours, with me, i take a lot of different medication mostly for pain, there is one drug i am on called gabapentin(neurontin) and when i started taking it i had to take it every day twice and i was told that it has to build up in my system in order for it to start working, that was 8 years ago. it honestly depends on the person and their body, i hope that my advice helps, good luck with the medication and i hope you find a medication that works for you and that wont effect your mood stableizer.

Re: New Medication?
 

There's a general rule-of-thumb that anti-depressants take about 2 weeks on average to produce effects that the person can feel. They begin working much sooner but the effects are not felt by the person until the 2 week mark. However, when there is a drug-drug interaction, such as the one occurring with you, it becomes pretty unpredictable as to the timing for any symptoms to be shown.

But something else to add, Epival really isn't an anti-depressant. It's an anti-convulsant but it has been shown over and over that anti-convulsants can and do help with treating some mood disorders, although you may need to pay more attention as there can be a greater variety of side-effects, some of which are very nasty and put you in a place far worse than simply going to the psych ward.

Since you're also in Canada, this may be relevant to you and in addition because of bipolar and mood disorders, it's from the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba: http://www.depression.mb.ca/document...EATED-OBAD.pdf
It is a PDF.