How sensitive are you to changes in your medication?

[rBoulet]

So I was just talking about this with my girlfriend and it got me thinking, how sensitive are the rest of you to changes in your medication? I'm talking about missing one or two doses, do you notice it in your mood? I'm pretty sure I can but I'm not sure if it's even possible to be that sensitive to changes that quickly, so I wanted to get your guys' opinions on it.

I also had a question relating to this. I (more often than I'd like to admit) totally forget to take my medication each morning, and I find that if I forgot to take my medication the night before or that night that it really affects my mood to the point where I stop taking it (either because I'm too depressed to bother putting the effort into it or I feel like I don't need it and end up hypomanic/manic). I was wondering, if I were to switch to lithium I wouldn't have to take an antidepressant with it right? And would I only be taking it once a day? I can tell that when my mood changes it really puts a lot of stress on my girlfriend and my family, so I'd like for it to happen as little as possible. Right now with how inconsistent I am taking medication, no matter how hard I try I just seem to have mood swings that could probably be avoided.

[rBoulet]

Thanks for all your replies, they really are helpful. I have another question now for anybody who is taking or has been on lithium. How many times do your have to take it a day and how are the side effects? Right now I'm on epival (depakote in the USA I think) and celexa and they give me tremors to the point where it affects my work. They also make me sleep-in if I take them too late at night which causes me to miss my morning dose because I'm in such a hurry.

If I would only have to take the lithium once a day then I can't see myself accidentally missing doses anymore. Also due to the fact that they'd be doing regular blood checks to see the lithium levels in my blood they'd notice if I stopped taking them and be able to catch any mood swing a lot earlier, hopefully before I end up in the hospital.
That's what I'm hoping anyways.

[dame_wilbur]

I'm *very* sensitive to my medications. If I miss a single dose, I'm either a complete basket case, sobbing, or in the ER. I have to be very careful that I always take my meds, and on time too. If I'm an hour or two late with some of my doses (I take meds 4x a day), I can start to feel the effect. My psych says it's because I'm hypersensitive in general, so I can feel any change in my body very easily. It's not fun.

[Seph1212]

I've been on Lamictal alone for a while, so I'll comment on that med for me.

Lately I've been very good about taking my meds daily, although the time of day can be erratic. I've read that Lamical can be really picky about not taking it on schedule. I haven't found that to be true, other than perhaps some fatigue in late afternoon between doses.

When increasing doses, I experience some side effects that last two or three days...head aches, muscle (especially back) and joint aches, and occasional blue-green vision.

When I have gone off meds, I haven't experienced any side effects, but I descend rapidly into a mixed state, which can go either way...depression or hypomania. My best friend usually comment's that Mr. Hyde is back. Either I tell him to eff off or I tune into what he's saying.

I love the picture listed at this link http://i.ehow.com/images/a05/5o/h6/bipolar-ii-symptoms-men-800X800.jpg That's me in a mixed state.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

What you describe with missing one or two doses depends on the half-life of the medication.  Some like Geodon have a half-life of only hours in the single digits so it can get out of your system within a day.  Generally it is accepted that seven half-lifes equals the medicine being entirely out of your system.

As for me being affected by my medicine, apparently I started relapsing immediately once the medicine was out of my system entirely when I was taken off the highest dose of Geodon and put on only half the starting dose of Abilify and I was unaware of it happening until it became severe and I was doing things like wanting to run from a helicopter and panicking at the sound of it as my first response to it and for no reason based in reality since I've never had any reason to be scared of helicopters.  Not to mention one of my cats looked like a demon and various other things.  My mood doesn't really give it away as I feel a lot of anxiety most of the time anyway.

I hear Lithium treats bipolar depression just as it does mania so you might not have to take an antidepressant (medicine works differently for us all) but you're going to have to drinks lot of water throughout the day and monitor your side effects because you can go toxic easily if you're not careful.

Perhaps you could set an alarm on your phone if it has that function like I do to help you remember to take your medicine but generally I remember because I'm scared of what I'm like without it so much the time to take the medicine is always in the back of my mind.