What medication works for you?

So I have tried many medications such as Lithium, Seroquel, and Abilify which made me feel like a zombie. Ice tried a lot of anti depressants which didn't seem to do anything. Then it seemed that Risperdone and Latuda had the least side effects for me and prevented mania but didn't help with depression. What medication works best for you and helps keep you on an even keel? Is there a combination that helps with the depression and keeps you from going manic?

Geodon and Lexapro have worked for me for years. Geodon keeps my psychosis and mania at bay, lexapro helps with depression an anxiety. I was on Abilify, Xanax, Risperdal, and Topamax, and all had horrible side effects on me, to the point I had to come off of them. Finding the right medication is hard, but once you find it, it's wonderful and all worth it, at least for me.

Right now I'm just taking clozapine. It slows the cycling and prevents mania and psychosis really well. If you google it, it says its for treatment resistant schizophrenia, but it does help with bipolar. Nothing else really worked.

I take A LOT of meds. I've actually cut back on one, but the rest work for me. I take Lamictal, Wellbutrin, Vraylar and a sleep aid, and also valium as needed.

Lomotrigine (Lamictal) in a relatively high dose has been the best help for me. I have a hard time with meds working enough to convince me of their worth. No matter the illness and medication, most drugs either do nothing or take a higher dose to have any effect. For mental illness, I have taken several things (not really in order):

-I started on Lexapro as a teen, back when they thought I just had depression. It did absolutely nothing.
-Then I took something that started with a "C" (sorry I can't remember the name) when they thought I had some kind of ADHD and depression mix. That stuff made me higher than a kite, like I was a superhero who could do anything. I didn't sleep for days on end and I loved it, but they realized the side effects and took it away.
-I took Prazosin for sleep troubles in relation to PTSD and it did absolutely nothing, even on a high dose.
-I have taken Topamax, which was originally prescribed for severe migraines, and it helped a little for both. But I don't like taking meds so I went off of it because it wasn't enough of a difference to really miss it.
-I have taken Xanax for periods of extreme anxiety but the results were mixed so it wasn't worth it to me to continue. I still have some as a last resort.

I've taken or have been prescribed others, but I can't remember all of them... Sometimes (not always) antidepressants can actually be detrimental to someone with Bipolar Disorder. Some can trigger severe manic or even psychotic episodes. I believe this was the case when I took Wellbutrin. Maybe this drug is one of the reasons why I am skeptical about meds. Shortly after starting it, things got far worse instead of better. At first I didn't realize that it was the drug, I just thought it was the illness or the circumstances. But the higher the dose and the longer I took it, the worse things got, eventually spiraling out of control and into psychosis. I'm not saying it directly caused the psychosis, but I think it was one of the catalysts. It actually helped confirm the bipolar diagnosis in my case.

But this medication is very helpful for some people, so don't let my testimony freak you out.

Lithium (fewer suicidal thoughts/mania)
Invega (fewer psychotic thoughts/delusions)
Klonopin(relaxes me so I can fall asleep)

I'm on 400 mg Lamotrigine/Lamictal and that seems to help my depression. I was on the max dose of Latuda but became a zombie. It worked really well on a lower dose, but the weight gain was too much for me to handle, so I stopped it. Other than these, none of the (many) meds I have been on didn't do anything, or gave me such bad side-effects that I had to stop taking them.