My “Psych Byte” Webinar for the International Bipolar Foundation

 

It’s the day after Thanksgiving at dawn. I’m watching a beautiful orange-gold sunrise while Lucy is chomping her dog food and everyone else is asleep. I hope your Thanksgiving went as well as possible. For those of you in other countries, I hope your week has been a good one.

This will be a short post, but you have the option of watching a “Psych Byte” YouTube video I recorded last month.

What’s a Psych Byte?

It’s a mini-webinar series produced by the International Bipolar Foundation. I was asked to participate last year and I nervously accepted because I was told my discussion could be as short as 15-20 minutes.

Pre-recorded webinars can be heavily edited or recorded in one take with minimal or no editing. Once I started recording the Psych Byte, I had to keep going—there was a little editing done, I believe, but not much. There are mistakes galore, but I like to think that makes the talk more interesting and authentic! At least I don’t think I used any potty language!

If you give it a listen, I hope you learn something new. If you could please “like” and share the YouTube link that would be awesome. The more positive response, the more likely the International Bipolar Foundation will note the need to share more information about postpartum bipolar disorder & how it relates to postpartum psychosis.

Also, if you’ve read my book and found it to be a worthy read, please review it on Amazon and/or Goodreads. I’ll be very grateful to you!

Take care & have a good weekend!!

Love,

Dyane

 

 

 

 

 

Birth of a New Brain – Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder With a foreword by perinatal psychiatrist and author Dr. Carol Henshaw, now available on Amazon.

Medications| International Bipolar Foundation & More, Oh My!

 Lucy, stick to dog kibble!

 There’s something in the blogosphere air this week…

After months of my faithfully posting every Friday, no more, no less, these past few days I’ve been full of blogging & re-blogging excitement! I just can’t help myself, especially when it comes to the topic that my good friend Kitt O’Malley addressed today in her acclaimed blog.  Kitt’s post contains an International Bipolar Foundation post written by our our mutual friend Susan Zarit.  I also have been blogging for the International Bipolar Foundation once a month, but I haven’t tackled the slippery slope of medication yet.  What has dissuaded me in part is that bloggers aren’t allowed to mention specific medications in our posts, so it’s a good thing I have my own blog! 🙂 Please read on…

I’m on a mission to let people know about a rather “obsolete”, unsung bipolar medication combination that DID work to lift my years-long, insidious, evil bipolar depression.   I’ll tell you one thing, my friends, it wasn’t no gift! 😉

What still boggles my mind to this day is that none of the numerous psychiatrists I consulted with ever thought to mention this medication until my most recent doctor, Dr. D.  Since I was diagnosed with postpartum bipolar one disorder in 2007, Dr. D. is the best psychiatrist I’ve ever seen, bar none, and a big reason why that is the case is because he thought out of the box, he had extensive experience, he was patient, and most importantly…he cared.  

In late 2013, per Dr. D.’s suggestion, I started taking an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) medication called Parnate, which is an old-school anti-depressant medication.   I’ve never had any anti-depressant throw me into hypomania or mania, but of course that was a concern. The fact I was taking a therapeutic dose of the mood stabilizer lithium was a safeguard in a way, but of course I needed to be closely monitored.  

There are a few different MAOI’s and they’ve been used for decades for bipolar-medication resistant patients!  So yes, again, I wonder why didn’t any psychiatrist think to tell me about MAOI’s as a possibility before Dr. D. suggested them?  I’d love your take on that one! For the record my father (who also had bipolar one) took an MAOI in the early 1980’s, but it didn’t work for him as he drank alcohol while taking it, which is a BIG BIG no no.

Parnate works especially well when used with lithium; I take 900 mg of lithium a night and I’m extremely lucky that my blood tests have all been normal and I can tolerate it very well..

I never like to give false hope when it comes to bipolar & meds, but this combination of an MAOI and lithium has been nothing short of miraculous in my life. It hasn’t been perfect; there are sacrifices I’ve made (some good, i.e. the nixing of alcohol!) but dammit – these sacrifices have been completely worth it.  Read on for more info. – and I’ll try not to blog again until my regular Friday. Famous last words….. 😉

p.s. feel free to ask me any and all questions about MAOI’s & if I don’t know the answer I’ll ask my psychiatrist when I see him on Thursday.

Kitt O'Malley

My friend Dyane Harwood of Birth of a New Brain responded to a recent IBPF blog article by Susan Zarit entitled Medications: To Have Or Not, That Is The Question! Susan Zarit of Bravely Bipolar has struggled unsuccessfully to find a medication combination that works. I can only imagine what Susan must go through mood cycling on a daily basis. Neither Dyane Harwood nor I are medical doctors. Please see a psychiatrist for psychotropic medications and to discuss medication changes. Medication of psychiatric illnesses requires the expertise of a psychiatrist. In my opinion, serious mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, are best treated with medication by board certified psychiatrists. Supportive psychotherapists should be expert in working with our populations. We need more specialized support than, say, relationship counseling.

Dyane Harwood | Tue, 2015-03-03 09:34

Hi Susan! thanks so much for writing about this topic!

I know you wrote…

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