I am not asking for medical advice but want to know other people’s experiences.
I’m also wondering more about for the depressive side of things as I’m in a severe depressive episode right now and I do not think lithium is going to work at this point. I’m not giving up on it or doing anything without my doctor’s say so.
As in how well has it maintained your response, what has your schedule with it been like, anything else.
I’m currently on bupropion, lamotrigine, lithium and lurasidone and I am still depressed and suicidal enough to have been inpatient for over a month. I am on other medications but they’re for different conditions.
I’ve tried eleven antidepressants. One fully worked combined with lamotrigine and I was in remission for two years but it stopped working. I responded to lamotrigine well too but I’ve been on it for a long time now and I’m not convinced it’s doing much if anything anymore. Some other antidepressants or other types of medication I have slightly/partially responded to but it’s been short lived. I’m still on lamotrigine and also on lithium. Lithium has been added in the last month so there’s still a chance it may work but currently it is not. I’ve tried multiple antipsychotics. Two did nothing for my depression and the third worked for little periods of time and then would work for a few months again when upping the dose. I can still go up in dose but I expect the same thing to happen again and I only get a partial response as well so I don’t really want to bother doing that. ECT I responded to amazingly to the point I wasn’t even mildly depressed anymore but it only lasted four months and professionals are not keen on doing more or maintenance. I was told point blank no at first but now that I may not respond to lithium they’re giving me a maybe.
I haven’t tried MAOIs but I can’t with the interactions with my other medications so that option is out. Outside of them though I have tried multiple SSRIs, multiple SNRIs, multiple tricyclics and atypicals. I’ve tried going back on venlafaxine twice since it did work for me and it wouldn’t work again years later.
Therapy has also been tried multiple times and only ever made me worse. Multiple different kinds of therapy too.
Does anyone know of any other options that I have a realistic chance of getting? As I know there are other options in places such as the US but they’re either inaccessible or don’t really seem to be done here like augmentation with stimulants for example.
I was told by my last psychiatrist I’m no longer seeing that lithium is my last option. My inpatient psychiatrist is saying he’s sure there’s something else but he hasn’t actually looked at or heard my full history of all I’ve tried and the other options I know of I have not heard of being done here. Like I said they’ve said maybe more ECT but they do not want to do maintenance but I’m almost guaranteed to relapse again if they just give me another acute course and no maintenance so I don’t think it’s even worth it if it’s only an acute course. Yes it might save my life again but what am I meant to do, have an acute course of ECT every four months for the rest of my life?
I’m in that place again where if there’s nothing that’s going to work then I’m out and I think if they won’t do maintenance ECT then to me there is just no point. Relapse rates are high for ECT in general and it’s been shown that I already relapsed once in four months so I wouldn’t except different the second time around and to me that is not worth staying alive for. I don’t know what to do and if I should try fighting for maintenance ECT or if there’s anything else I have any realistic chance of getting or that’s worth trying.
And what did you do after relapsing? Did you have another acute course? Or maintenance? Something else?