Hi all. New here.

Hello all. I just need someone to talk to. Male, 22. Bipolar disorder.
Medications:
Seroquel XR 150mg po hs
Topamax 200mg po hs
Celexa 15mg po hs
Protonix 40mg po hs
Lunesta 3mg po hs
Zofran 4mg prn nausea

I don't really even know where to start. I guess the biggest problem right now is the nausea. It's nearly constant, for about two months. The zofran helps me keep food and water down, but not much more. An abdominal xray and CT were fine, bloodwork was clean, so what's causing it?

I cry constantly. That, or I feel like I'm on the verge of crying. A song came on the hifi today (blue light yokohama, my favorite song) and I sat on the floor in tears for fifteen minutes.

I have panic and anxiety about everything. I feel a near constant sense of dread. My mind races about problems that don't even exist yet, and then I get nauseous, and then I want to cry, and then I just don't know what to do.

Today was better than the past few weeks. I cleaned my room, top to bottom, washed the linens, opened a window, and lit a candle. I'm trying to bring a positive feedback loop into my life. But I still feel constant dread, anxiety, panic, and nausea. and I feel like I'm going to cry.

I just don't know what to do anymore.

meds may be causing it. i was taking so many meds years ago it was making me sick. I know seroquel makes me feel sick if i wake up a few hours after taking it.

Hi,

Sorry to hear you're having such a bad time. It does make sense that the meds could be causing it. However I often get nausea when I'm depressed. Two months ago I had a pretty bad break up... it left me really depressed (even for a bipolar!), I couldn't move for about two weeks, couldn't eat or drink, and kept throwing up, I went to hospital and was almost put on a drip. Fortunately it stopped as I started to get over things. Maybe it's just a cycle of you depression which should end soon enough! And the crying is pretty normal. I find it funny sometimes when I just start bawling for no reason, it's a shame though, I can't watch romcoms anymore without everyone thinking I'm weird!

I agree that it could be meds - you are on a hefty whack. When I was on benzos esp I cried a lot and I notice you are on a benzo like sleeping med so I wonder if it might be partly due to that - tho this is something you would need to talk to your Dr about.

Another thing is whether your underlying illness is under control and I wonder if you should be reassessed to look into this.

You are not alone in the crying at all but I think you need to really bug your Dr about this.

As for the sickness again it could well be meds in my experience but I think you need to pin your Dr down about whether anything you are on can cause this. It is good that medical causes have been ruled out tho. Remember too there are many antisickness meds so it might be that something else might do you better than what you are on atm.

I really hope things settle for you

Hugs

Cracked

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I started to feel well again, and then the last day or so, the nausea has started coming back. At first it wasn't so bad, and I could just kind of live with it, but now I'm just so scared. Right now it's so bad that I'm sweating. I know I'm going to vomit. I'm trying to tell myself I'll be okay, and I'm not going to vomit, and that I'll be fine, but I just feel awful.

Everytime I get like this, I get this wash of a strange feeling over me. I don't even know how to describe it, just an odd feeling like something is wrong and I'm in the wrong place, but I'm at home or in my bed or something normal. Then I get a rush of heat, and I start sweating. Then I get horribly nauseous.

I nearly forgot I made this thread. I'm home alone, waiting for my mom to come home from work. I'm glad that I remembered about this thread, I just don't want to feel so alone right now. I need to find a new psychiatrist. Mine dropped me as a patient last month for missing appointments, but the reason I was missing appointments was because I couldn't get out of my house from the nausea. Things are just so messed up right now, I don't even know what to do.

I am sorry you are feeling so bad with the nausea. It sounds awful. I think that you need to tell you Dr again how bad things are for you and ask them if there is anything else physical it could be that needs ruling out with tests other than those that have been done already. It sounds quite extreme and I wonder if there is a physical cause that has not been discovered yet - but you need to discuss that with your Dr. It might be that there is an appropriate physician you can be referred to to look into things further. It can be difficult to push Drs to further investigate but it sounds like you need to.

I really hope things improve for you soon

Hugs

Cracked

A-A,

Love your nic! (and glad you are opposed to that sort of thing, lol)

Please understand I have no real medical expertise. I simply have a strong visceral reaction that you are being over-medicated. Big time. In general, meds ameliorate some symptoms, but cause others. I think the cure can be worse than the disease (not that that is always the case .... just shrinks often cannot distinguish the two cases).

Since you are changing you doctor anyway, I'd like to suggest you consider an alternative. And you probably should have a psychiatrist assist you for a while as you scale down your medications, as going "cold turkey" may not be the best thing either. But I suggest you consider finding a qualified therapist/psychologist who has experience with BP patients. He or she will not be able to prescribe meds, but can work with a physician during the process of scaling back your meds.

Some common sense things my therapist recommends are regular exercise, being out in the sun at mid day, keeping regular sleep hours, being involved in an ongoing group activity, and having a monogamous relationship. In my personal experience these things help ... well still working on the monogamy thing. She says some patients find a benefit in SAM-e (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Adenosyl_methionine), which I take intermittently. I also take blue-green algae regularly, which I think helps.

This type of regimen may only address people with relatively minor illness, which I am fortunate (??) to have. But if it works for you, I cannot help but think you'd be better off than with what drug companies peddle. If you try my suggestion, please let me know how it works for you.