Hi everyone! In this week’s video, I talk about my journey with medications for bipolar disorder type 2.
Hi everyone my name is viktor fernandez and welcome to my channel i love you inspire mental health if you’re not subscribed to my channel please subscribe i post weekly videos about mental health and my experience with bipolar disorder now this next video i do want to say that i am not a doctor i’m purely talking about my own experiences what i’ve gone through what
I’ve been put on by my doctor prescribed them by my doctor um but i do want to talk about this topic because so many of you guys have messaged me privately or commented on my videos asking me what do you take for bipolar disorder what is a medication that has helped you become the person you’ve become today and i think that that’s something that i avoided for
A long time because i was just afraid of you know talking about something so delicate what did it mean for me to actually share that information with other people so then since i got it so much i kind of started thinking okay well maybe this information could actually help someone um talking about it and so i asked my doctor what he would think my psychiatrist
Of me talking about this telling them the world what i take for bipolar disorder and he actually thought it was a great idea which is why i’m here today making this video to finally tell you guys what it is that i take um now this video is going to be kind of like a journey um of what it’s been i’ve been in different medic on different medications and again
I do want to say this is all my personal experience everyone is different this is why you should always talk to your doctor about any hesitations anything that you know you feel scared about any medication or when there’s something wrong you should be with a doctor that’s there for you whenever you need them because this can be very delicate so if you’ve
Watched my videos previously you know that i was diagnosed with bipolar disorder because i had a reaction to a certain medication and that medication made me have like you know the symptoms of bipolar disorder the hype manic episode so the first medication that i was given was prozac and that’s kind of what triggered my symptoms of bipolar disorder because
Sometimes antidepressants instead of helping you with your depression they show they make people who have bipolars or show their hypomanic or manic symptoms so that can be pretty scary so of course that’s what leads them to believe that a bipolar disorder because i was having these symptoms due to the antidepressant in this case prozac so of course we didn’t
Really believe the doctor that had bipolar disorder because of all the stigma that surrounds it so he went to a different doctor and he said the same thing he said you know that medication triggered you these you know you have these symptoms and that’s why i’m diagnosing you with bipolar disorder type 2. so i’m going to give you now this medication i used to
Take this i don’t take it anymore so he gave me cerebral and lamotrigine and that’s quantipine and limitle i believe like the generic names and stuff like that you know there’s like several names for medications but um those were the two that i was prescribed with and i was on those for about four years and they did stabilize me i mean for a while i in with
The cereal quilt it was really helping me tone down that depression and kind of feel like more stable but it was not perfect um the circle had a lot of side effects that affected me each person is different so each person might suffer with different side effects and for me personally with circle i couldn’t sleep that medication is supposed to help you sleep a
Lot of people take it to go to sleep but for me it did the opposite i was up at three in the morning ideas here ideas there i couldn’t sleep i was stressed i was having panic attacks like it helped me get better but i wasn’t you know where i was supposed to be with that medication now in that moment since all i had ever known was feeling terrible like through
My teenage years i was like okay this medication helps me feel better but you know i started taking circle i had that first side effect that i’ve told you all about in my videos my tongue was swollen and i was freaking out thank god that left um and i just you know kept taking it for a long time until my doctor he was like okay well we could try something and
I was like i think it’s time because we both discussed that i’ve been pretty stable and that i wanted to have something that was better because clearly the circle was not helping me with my ocd i mean i was so bad even if my emotions were like more stable my ocd was just all over the place with circle um and that way you know so he makes the decision that we’re
Gonna try something new so this is where the medication i take right now comes into place so i currently take the motrigine along with lithium and that has been the best medication that i have ever been in of course it has come with side effects i’ve also made videos about that but by name those two combined have helped me tremendously with my bipolar disorder
With my ocd i don’t know if they intend to with ocd and everything but for me it’s helped me um and it wasn’t easy changing medications was not easy i remember changing from seroquel to lithium i was vomiting and vomiting and vomiting like it was just awful like awful um just having to go through that especially switching medications because i had to take
Circle and then start cutting it in half and then take lithium at the same time with lamotrigine a lot of different things that affected my stomach affected like all kinds of things in my body and that was very difficult for me but ultimately i was like okay this is for my well-being especially since i started seeing that with lithium i felt more normal i
Felt more stable than with cerebral it was like i was reaching this new i don’t know how to describe that feeling but it’s like it’s like reaching a new level of well-being and i felt so you know calm i wasn’t crying during exams anymore i wasn’t having a panic attack because of a homework i was just so much more calm now what i got even better in the future
When i stopped taking adhd medications but that’s a whole different story but in the moment you know this ser of this lithium and the multi-gene combination helped me a lot um some of the effects that i had side effects that i had i tremors um sometimes i still get them but i’ve lowered the dosage to where it doesn’t affect me as much anymore but my hand would
Definitely be shaking like i couldn’t be holding like a banana or anything because it would like it would be hard for me to hold it it was just shaking so much and i just it felt weird i felt weird sometimes um and then also my acne it was so bad my acne got really bad when i started taking lithium and i didn’t understand why at the age of 21 i believe it was
21 or 20. but um i didn’t get why i was having so much acne i didn’t get why i like suddenly that was happening and so i started trying a bunch of different products to try to help me just made it worse until i finally went to a dermatologist he helped me a lot and then ultimately lowering the lithium with the help of the doctor helped reduce my acne so there’s
Definitely things that uh you go through taking these medications but do i regret taking them of course not do i want to take them all my life no um i’m hoping that things get developed in the future uh scientifically so you know we don’t have to take medications or um there’s other ways to overcome or whatever it is but at the moment that’s the best thing it lets
Me live a normal life it lets me you know not have my ups and downs do i still have episodes not really but i do have my ups and downs sometimes i you know just like any human being i might get triggered more easily than other people but with this medication i have been able to understand myself in a whole new level i understand what’s real and what’s not when
It comes to my thoughts and feelings like when i’m thinking oh like i hate myself all this stuff it’s i’m like okay that’s my bipolar or that’s my ocd i understand it and being stable has allowed me to be more self-aware um and ultimately you know make these videos i i started making these videos after i was on illithium so i am not definitely not recommending
Anything to anyone i’m no no doctor but a lot of people have asked me and i feel like it is important to know what kind of medication you’re being prescribed it’s so important to your research to see if it’s been successful for other people to understand the side effects but not get obsessed over them it’s so easy to you know grab that whole pamphlet and
Like open in like all these side effects like stroke things that whatever that’s not a side of i don’t know if it is but i’m just saying as an example all that kind of stuff you get freaked out which is normal but you have to realize that they have to put those things to um in order to you know watch their backs like those companies and the more reliable thing
That you can do to see if you’re going to get those side effects is starting with a low dose which your doctor is going to obviously recommend and not only that but you tell your doctor you know i have a family history of this and a family history of that and obviously that doctor will be like okay maybe this medication is for you maybe it’s not for you maybe
You might suffer this things so you need to do this this and that so if you like if you’re going to a psychiatrist go in there with your questions go in there with your research it’ll make it so much easier for you to get the right medication the right diagnosis um because you’re going in there self-aware so i wanted to share this i’m open to answering any of
Your questions about it my experience with it it’s definitely been a long journey i was diagnosed when i was 17 i’m about to turn 23 soon um so it’s been a while but i think that lithium has definitely changed my life um i i’ve been able to reach new heights new goals in my life because i am more stable because i am able to cope with things better with stress
Better like i remember whenever i was just on stair quality and before circle of course it’s like i cared about every little thing like i’m gonna fail this if i fail this my life is ruined if i do this my life is ruined like all this it was like micromanaging my life and after i started taking lithium i was like oh i didn’t do that it’s okay it’s not the end of
The world so my whole thought system was changing and it’s so crazy to to see like how like all these chemicals in our heads um our you know shape how we act and if you’re not on the right medication or if you’re not taking medication and you need it how it that’s impacting your life versus how it could be so that’s i think that’s all i got for this video i
Can’t think of anything else that i would say all these medications but um again like i said it’s my own experience everyone is different there’s so many different types of medication out there if the one you’re thinking is not working for you talk to your doctor about changing it find the right doctor for you that’s so so so important to her to get the right
Diagnosis um and if you have any other questions please let me know and please like this video please comment share it and please subscribe we’re almost at 1 000 subscribers which makes it so excited and always remember that there’s a lot of things in the tunnel and a bad day it’s not made of bad life you
Transcribed from video
The Medications That I Take For Bipolar Disorder Type II By I Live To Inspire Mental Health
