What Should I Do If I Am Experiencing Side Effects Due To The Medications For Bipolar Disorder?

— -- Question: What should I do if I am experiencing side effects due to the medications for bipolar disorder?

Answer: I think people should consider their relationship with their medications much as they do consider their relationships with people as they begin dating.

And there's no reason to be terribly concerned about the long-term side effects of the treatment unless it has been good for you as you've begun to work with it. If it has been beneficial, you can then judge the side effects against the benefit that you get.

So any treatment that hasn't worked for you, feel free to discard it. But if that treatment has given you a valuable benefit, and the side effects are mild to moderate, consider what the alternatives are. There's a risk that you'll try something else and it'll be better without the side effects, but there's also a risk that that alternative intervention won't work as well. And it really depends on what your previous experience has been with the treatment and the alternatives that are available. There's no treatment that we can offer that would be totally without side effects, but there's also no way to know which side effects a given individual might experience. So give the medications a try. If they work, then decide whether the side effects you experience are worth the benefit you're getting.

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