I came to talk about mood stabilizers and figured I'd start by summarizing our sidebar poll "What is Your Favorite Mood Stabilizer?" Only every time I come on, the poll has gotten more votes, so I guess I'm waiting for the mood stabilizer poll to stabilize.
Here's where we're at so far:
What's Your Favorite Mood Stabilizer?
Lithium | 32 (22%) |
Depakote (Valproate) | 27 (19%) |
Zyprexa (Olanzapine)/ other atypical anti-psychotics | 29 (20%) |
Carbamazepine (Tegretol) | 1 (0%) |
Gabapentin (Neurontin) | 9 (6%) |
Lamotrigine (Lamictal) | 44 (30%) |
143 votes, Lamictal has been consistently in the lead since the beginning. Both surprising and not surprising.
I talked about How A Shrink Chooses an Antidepressant. I have less to say about how a Shrink Chooses a Mood Stabilizer. In fact, I'm not really sure. I'll tell you how This shrink chooses a mood stabilizer. It's not that much different, so click on the that post for more details.
- History of Past Response.
- Family History of Response
- Patient Preference. This is a big one with mood stabilizers. The gold standard is Lithium and some patients just won't hear of it. They think taking lithium means they're really far gone, that it's heavy duty stuff, that it means they're crazy.
- Medical issues: lots of them with mood stabilizers.... lithium can effect the thyroid and kidneys, it interacts with lots of other meds, depakote can effect the liver, so can tegretol, lots to think about, lots to monitor.
- How strongly I'm convinced that the patient has had a full blown manic episode. Plenty of people say "I'm Bipolar" but the history doesn't reveal a story for episodic, syndromic co-occurance of the hallmark symptoms of mania: elevation in mood or irritability, increased energy/ decreased need for sleep, quickening of thoughts or speech, impulsivity with regard to spending, sexuality, religion, hallucinations, grandiose delusions, inflated sense of worth or well-being. None of these symptoms alone are enough to diagnose mania, ya gotta have a few and they have to occur at the same time as the other symptoms. Lots of people shop impulsively to cheer themselves up, lots of people have periods where they feel more energetic and productive, lots of people get happy when they win the lottery. It's sometimes hard to get a history for a syndromic diversion from a baseline (or pre-morbid) personality.
- If I think someone definitely has bipolar disorder, and there isn't a reason not to use it, I start with Lithium. It's a good mood stabilizer. It's cheap. I'm familiar with how to use it. It's also a good anti-depressant augmenter. Despite all the hype about the awful side effects (weight gain, nausea, tremor, cognitive slowing, renal and thyroid impairment), I've seen lots of people have good responses and not have any side effects, so I start with that assumption and I use low doses. If the patient gets better, I don't push the level, even if it's really low. If the patient has intolerable side effects, I try another preparation of lithium (eskalith, lithobid), and if that doesn't work, I stop it and try another med. Why do I like lithium? I think because I've heard enough people put up resistance, then try it and come in saying "I feel normal for the first time." The down side is that you have to do bloodwork every 3-4 months even if the patient is well and has no symptoms.
- If I'm not so sure about the manic component as a real, syndromic entity, and the primary complaint is depression, I start with Lamictal. The upside-- it's well tolerated, people like it, there's no routine labwork and there's no stigma. The down side-- slow going to build up from a dose of 25mg to the therapeutic range of around 400mg. Another down side-- that fatal rash risk. And the final down side-- I've heard a couple of anecdotes of patients who have ended up in the ICU with rashes, liver zorkout, life-threatening problems. Not a lot, but it only takes one such story to make you hold your breath when you write a prescription and I have a friend who says "I'll never be able to prescribe Lamictal again." It's not science. I actually tell patients this story-from-hell when I prescribe it, and they'll still take it over lithium. Mostly, it's a good medication, it's well tolerated, and it helps.
- If a patient doesn't want Lithium, I prescribe depakote. It's associates with it's own issues, including weight gain, needs lab monitoring, and if the patient doesn't have insurance, it's expensive and hard to get samples of.
- I haven't prescribed tegretol in ages and I wondered if the reason it's so unpopular on our sidebar is because it isn't used so much.
- I prescribe anti-psychotic medications to people who are agitated, acutely suffering, not sleeping, in need of something quicker than lithium/depakote/ or lamictal. These medications work, they're well-tolerated, patients like them. And I worry about the metabolic effects and wish there was some free ride.
- Sometimes I use one of the older anti-psychotic-- navane may be my favorite
- If there is no history of substance abuse (---hmmm, that's rare in people with bipolar disorder), I may prescribe some ativan or klonopin for the short term.
- I haven't used Trileptal, I don't know why. I have a patient or two on Neurontin, I stopped prescribing it when studies showed it didn't help with mood stabilization. Perhaps I was wrong. And I haven't seen very many people tolerate Topamax, though I have seen it work wonders for migraines.
- Lithium is my favorite.
And to one of our anonymous commenters who wrote in:
I hope you have a really great reason for purposely for gathering useless data.