What is the best medication for bipolar disorder?

Question

What is the best medication for bipolar disorder?

Answer 1

Abilify is great. It is to be used right before bedtime which is great because you are about to sleep anyway and the medicine makes you drowsy.

Answer 2

i was prescribed zoloft, but it didn't help me. ):

Answer 3

Seroquill will mess you up. I would say clonazepam or lorazepam.

Answer 4

saraquel is very popular

Answer 5

There is no "best" medicine, only what works best for you.  Everyone's body reacts differently to each psychiatric medication, so it takes some trial and error to find what works for you specifically.

There should always be a mood stabilizer.  Some people also require an anti-depressant, an anti-psychotic, or both to keep other symptoms in check.

Finding the right medication can be a lengthy process, but it's worth it in the end.

Answer 6

There are multiple agents that are used in the treatment of Bipolar Disorder.  Only your psychiatrist can determine which is/are best for you.

Answer 7

I would refer you to Jerod Poore's www.crazymeds.us

There is no 'best' medication for bipolar, there is only the medication that works, and it is a trial and error process to find it.

The standard treatment for Bipolar is a mood stabilizing drug (sometimes called anti-epileptic) like lithium, lamictal or depakote. Frequently an antidepressant is added on to improve mood quality. The actual cocktail people finally end up on can vary widely, from one mood stabilizer like lithium, to four or five drugs. It depends on your individual situation and needs.

For normal manic/BP1, Lithium is always the best starting place. It may not work, but it's a good place to start.

For BP2 or a BP with a lot of depression problems, lamictal (generic: lamotrigine) is a very good starting place.

There's a movement lately to toss bipolar patients on atypical antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa, Seroquel, Risperdal, Geodon and Abilify. This tends to have -very- poor results (on the whole, they do work for many people). These drugs are under patent and subject to a lot of marketing pressure. In my opinion, these are not first line drugs, and should not be tried until at least a few mood stabilizers have failed to work.