Triggering (ED) - depakote - anybody's experiences?*meds*maybe ed trig

[jen-x]

Hey,
just been switched from citalopram to depakote after seeing the psych who thinks it's more likely i'm bipolar 2. Does anyone have any experience with this drug? Everything I've read so far says weight gain and hairloss are big problems. This is difficult as i'm already dealing with bulimia so have issues with weight and have lost lots of hair because of it already..

part of me says take it because i've been in pretty dangerous places recently (right now i'm coping, just, and recog this), but the other part is saying well if i get even fatter again there'll be even less point in sticking around..

any experiences???

thanx
jen xx

[Misunderstood.]

I took it for quite a while and didn't find it made a difference at all, didn't work one bit.

[lovelybones]

yeh, i took it for a while but i couldn't do the blood testing so i stopped taking it. i know a few people who have been on it and they didn't have any side effects. the pills were huge though (i think i was on 500 mg). good luck!

[sopranonut]

I was on this for a while, but it was quite a few years ago. I think it may have helped a bit at the time but hard to remember as tried many different meds.
I do remember that i gained weight on it tho . Everyone's different tho and reacts differently to meds so you can't really know until you try it.

I'm on carbemazepine now, which i've been on for 3 years. It's worked the best for me and no weight gain. But as i said everyone's different.

Sorry if that's not much help.

[jen-x]

thankyou guys! i just like to get an idea of different experiences before i take something and i find if you go on chatboards specifically for rating you only get the negatives!!!

[Bleeding Angel]

i didnt get any side effects excpet the first 3 days which made me really ill, but its helped my mood alot.

like somone said the tablets are well massive, and i find them hard to swallow, esp cause they taste awful too.

[Sunshine]

I am on it an the tablets are HUGE i hate taking them! im not sure about the weight gain tho because i was put on olanzepine atthe same time so my weight gain was probably due to that! They do help though my mood is definatly more stable and less up and down

xxx

I hated it. Didn't work. Gave me HORRIBLE acne. That's something the psychs don't tell you, even when you're an 18 year old girl. The other thing is, you absolutely cannot under any circumstances get pregnant on this drug. It will cause severe birth defects before you even know you're pregnant. You have to use both birth control and protection. (yes they put me on this in the hospital when they had just two weeks before taken me off all meds thinking i was pregnant... and did not tell me this til later) It didn't make me gain weight, but really most of them don't w/ me, so i don't know how your body would take it. Just make sure you know that you may be having to do some meds for acne if you take this. It's made me have acne much more easily even since I got off of it, cause they didn't tell me, so I didn't take antibiotics to counter it and all until it was too late.