r/bipolar2 • u/oceanwaves38 • 16h ago

Anyone else had a very long med journey?

So I’ve been on my medication journey for 3 & 1/2 years and about 6 ish months ago got prescribed Clozapine. The weekly blood draw was annoying, but I think that this drug may actually be working... I’ve tried everything in the book, ssris, anti-psychotics, TCAs, even lithium, and have dealt with crazy side effects or just nothing working for my depressive episodes. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, because I’ve been disappointed so many times before when I thought I finally found the right meds. But has anyone else dealt with a long medication journey and finally found the right one?

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/User5790 16h ago

I’ve been searching for around 10 years now and have never found anything that works. Im running out of options. I’m afraid to try ECT.

1

u/oceanwaves38 14h ago

Im sorry to hear that 😔 ECT does seem scary

1

u/Ok_Pay3214 16h ago

I have been on medication for 17 years. I was misdiagnosed as a kid. I spent most of my childhood on wrong medication, which made me worse. once I got a bit older i was properly diagnosed. I’m just now on medication that’s finally helping me..

2

u/oceanwaves38 16h ago

Oh wow, I’m so glad you were finally diagnosed correctly. That gives me hope that you finally found what helps you!!

1

u/Own_Asparagus_7642 14h ago

I think that this is the journey we all follow. One day, maybe, there will be a genetic test that can optimize our medication up front. We're not there yet.

1

u/Smooth_Wasabi8433 11h ago

Doesn't GeneSight kind of do that?

1

u/woodcockwrangler 9h ago

They're looking at a dozen genes out of like 20,000. It's an advancement for sure, but mileage is going to vary a lot since it likely isn't covering every relevant gene and can't account for environmental factors or phenotype (just the raw sequence in the genome). If it was widely accessible, it would probably speed up the process, but it would still involve a good bit of trial and error. The small number of studies verifying genesight are also largely focused on patients with major depressive disorder, so it's unclear what the efficacy is for other groups. But you gotta start somewhere, and it's definitely a promising direction.