My Bipolar Backpack by Susan Ralphe

Author:Susan Ralphe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mental Health
Publisher: Susan Ralphe
Published: 2014-12-10T05:56:57+00:00

FOURTEEN

Dr. Benjamin prescribed Lithobid, 300 mg morning and evening to fight my bipolar symptoms. Lithium carbonate, the generic name for Lithobid, is a salt first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1970 to treat bipolar patients—a mere 16 years before I needed it.

According to the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), bipolar disorder affects 6.1 million American adults or about 2.6 percent of the population 18 years or older. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) statistics also show that only 48.8 percent of bipolar individuals are receiving treatment. For me, one of the fortunate ones who got treatment, Lithium successfully, almost instantly, leveled my moods.

My psychiatrist said it would take a couple of weeks for it to kick in, and as well as I can recall, that was the case. I remember clearly that I felt a lot better within a short time. After all those years, it was sweet relief. All the tenseness melted, and my brain shifted effortlessly into “normal” gear, with not even a glimpse of the old brain freeze visible in its rear-view mirror.

One day, however, I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror for the first time in a long while, appalled at the sight of the overweight woman who looked back at me. My face had become noticeably fatter, but it was my non-existent waistline and much-wider hips that shocked me most. Yet I was eating sensibly, actually less than I used to, because food, like most other things, had had little appeal when I was sick.

It must be Lithobid, I thought. What else could it be?

Dr. Benjamin confirmed my fears about this medication and weight gain.

Almost immediately after swallowing my first Lithobid tablet six months earlier, I had had to give away the size 7 clothes that had fit my 5’ 6”, formerly 120 pound frame, most of my adult life. Within months I had hit 150 pounds.

What could I expect from a daily diet of salt pills for medication? The weight issue, aside, however, I saw lithium as all-important to my health, still do. It stopped the craziness; it’s that simple.

Unfortunately residual depression lingered between 1986 and 1988. The lows I experienced weren’t overwhelming, didn’t cause me to shut down, but they were enough to color my mood gray and rob me of enthusiasm much of the time. To deal with this stubborn problem, Dr. Benjamin prescribed various anti-depressants. I started taking each new medication expecting it would get me out from under this cloud, but it never happened; in fact this turned into one more reason to feel low.

He adjusted dosages, but my depression dug in.

After two, long, post-hospitalization years, Dr. Benjamin announced that he wanted to eliminate the anti-depressants and add Tegretol to my Lithobid regimen.

“It’s an anticonvulsant and has been used for some time to prevent seizures,” he told me in his matter-of-fact way. “Scientists discovered fairly recently that it sometimes also works on depression in manic-depressives.”

“Sounds scary,” I said. “It must be heavy-duty.”

“If

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