medication

Communicating With Your Doctor About Your Medication

By Katherine Stone April 10, 2012

After suffering a manic episode because of miscommunication about medication with her doctor, Kimberly shares tips on how to make sure you understand your treatment plan. Kimberly is a Warrior Mom and also has bipolar disorder.

I flopped down onto his couch and then rested my head in my hands. My psychiatrist knew immediately that I wasn’t well.

“This sucks,” was all that I could muster up.

He turned his attention toward the computer and reviewed the last few appointments. I had been on a downward spiral for a few weeks.

“You’re taking this amount of X. You’re taking this amount of Y. And you’re taking this amount of Z,” he said to confirm where I was at on my treatment plan.

I shook my head no.

I wasn’t taking any of the dosages that he had documented. I was taking way less.

He cocked his head quizzically and returned his attention towards the computer.

“When did we change this?” [Read more...]

April 10, 2012 9:05 am Filed Under: Bipolar Disorder

Do Antidepressants During Pregnancy Lead to Developmental Delays?

By Katherine Stone March 5, 2010

Last week came research published on the effect of taking antidepressants on the developmental milestones of infants for those women who have depression during pregnancy.

As reported by Jennifer Thomas of HealthDay:

Using data on more than 81,000 babies born in Denmark, researchers found that children whose mothers took antidepressants during the second or third trimester sat without support later and walked later than children of depressed mothers who did not take medication. This was especially true for boys.

Despite the delays, the children's progress was still well within the bounds of normal development, the researchers noted. Children whose mothers took antidepressants sat about 16 days later and walked nearly a month later than the children of mothers who didn't take the drugs …

Despite some concerns, Dr. Diane Ashton, deputy medical director of the March of Dimes and an ob-gyn, urged women not to make any hasty decisions about discontinuing the drugs and to consult with their doctors first.

"For the most part, we feel it's important for women to be adequately treated for depression during pregnancy," Ashton said. "Depending on the severity of the symptoms, you may not have a choice. If the mother is depressed or suicidal to the point of hurting herself, she needs treatment."

ParentDish interviewed perinatal mood and anxiety disorder expert Dr. Ariel Dalfen to get her feedback on this new study. They wrote:

Dr. Ariel Dalfen, who is a psychiatrist and expert on postpartum depression at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, says that although it's prudent to pay attention to these kinds of studies, it's important to emphasize to patients that the results were inconclusive because "people get very scared." And while she acknowledges that every patient's situation is different, she says that women on antidepressants should never decide to go off their medication on their own.

"When people need to be on these medications, you have to balance the very small potential for side effects that haven't been well-documented with the need to treat their problem," she says. "We never want to take any prescribed treatments lightly, because there is always a small possibility that there could be negative effects on the fetus. But you need to make sure you're balancing all the risks and benefits, including the risks of having an untreated depression during pregnancy."

Also, click here if you are interested in more stories on the topic of pregnancy depression.

March 5, 2010 8:41 am Filed Under: Depression and Pregnancy, Effects on Children

Two Stories of Postpartum Anxiety and A Commentary on Medication for Depression

By Katherine Stone March 1, 2010

I read a lot of stuff. Thanks to the explosion of the blogosphere, it's getting harder and harder to keep up with all the great writing and sharing going on about postpartum depression. So I've missed a few things lately. What's more frustrating, they were things written by virtual friends of mine, people who have always been supportive of women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and people who have contributed to Postpartum Progress.

The first thing I missed was a great piece by Rita Arens of Surrender, Dorothy. Rita was a contributor to last year's Mother's Day Rally for Moms' Mental Health. Her post on BlogHer, entitled "Extreme Anxiety & New Motherhood: The Perfect Storm", is a great decription of what it is like to be a new mom when you suffer from anxiety. You think you've got worries?! Try being someone with PPA! They never end, not the normal "my baby isn't having enough bowel movements" worries and not the over-the-top "my baby is going tobe abducted by aliens" worries. Rita writes:

"In the height of my anxiety, I didn't trust my own instincts at all. I felt crazy most of the time, so how could I possibly know how to solve my parenting problems? I constantly sought the advice of others, read more parenting books — especially sleep books — watched the great new show Supernanny, read parenting magazines and parenting Web sites. I read advice that said if I just let my daughter cry for ten minutes, she'd sleep well for the rest of her life. I read articles that said too much baby fat would lead to a lifetime of obesity. (My girl was an off-the-charts large baby and is a 50th percentile five-year-old.) I read about the mercury in the tuna fish and the lead in the toys and worried about gas leaks and refined sugar and screen time all while letting my daughter eat packaged toddler snacks and watch more Baby Einstein while I sat on the couch trying to calm myself down and not go through once more in my head how quickly I could install the fire rescue ladder in my daughter's window when our house inevitably burned down."

How did Rita read my mind like that?

I also missed a piece by Catherine Connors of Her Bad Mother, who was also a contributor to the 2009 Mother's Day Rally for Moms' Mental Health. Also on BlogHer, and entitled "Depression: There's Still A Pill for That" is a commentary on all the press out lately about how antidepressants don't work. Catherine writes:

"In the parenting community, mothers sometimes resist discussing their use of antidepressants, because they fear stigma and judgment, and the characterization of antidepressants as either a) unnecessary, or b) the fallback of the truly crazy might be just enough to discourage open discussion about post-partum depression and, by extension, perhaps discourage some women from looking into it. If one is afraid of being stigmatized as crazy or sick, then the impulse to self-diagnose one's depression as 'mild blues' and avoid the pills could be strong. It already is. Making light of studies like these doesn't help".

She and I feel the same way about the mischaracterization of research in the media. I wrote about the same exact study and how it was inaccurately reported in my post "Headlines Report Antidpressants No More Effective Than Placebo. Were They Right?". (They weren't, by the way.) Catherine has an enormous reach and influence with her blog, so I'm glad she's taking the media to task. Given the back and forth over antidepressants in the post I wrote last week for BlogHer, this is a timely topic.

Then there's Heather Spohr, at The Spohr's Are Multiplying, who wrote this week about her current experience with postpartum anxiety. I don't know Heather yet, but maybe someday. Heather's daughter Maddie,passed away tragically last year. The combination of her previous experience with postpartum anxiety after having Maddie and her daughter's loss has led to a second bout of PPA after the birth of her new littlebaby Annabel.

"I want to be mentally healthy, mentally present for my Annabel, and I’m working really hard at it. I had massive postpartum anxiety with Madeline so I knew I would be at an increased risk to get it again. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to suffer through it again. But this time around, with everything that’s happened, it has been inevitable."

Go giveHeather a virtual Warrior Mom hug.

March 1, 2010 10:59 am Filed Under: Warrior Moms

MGH: The Impact of Atypical Antipsychotics on Birth Weight

By Katherine Stone January 28, 2010

The MGH Center for Women's Mental Health blog takes a look at new research on the impact of taking atypical antipsychotic medication while pregnant on birth weight.Atypical antipsychoticswould include medications like Seroquel, Risperdal, Abilify, Zyprexa and others. Check out their post on this.

Because there is so little (too little) information about the impact of these medications on pregnant women and babies, MGH has a National Pregnancy Registry for women who are taking them while pregnant. If you are pregnant, between the ages of 18 and 45,and on any of the following medications, you should reach out tothis registry:

Abilify (aripiprazole)

Clozaril (clozapine)

Geodon (ziprasidone)

Invega (paliperidone)

Risperdal (risperidone)

Seroquel (quetiapine)

Zyprexa (olanzapine)

As they explain, "the National Pregnancy Registry for Atypical Antipsychotics is dedicated to evaluating the safety of atypical antipsychotic medications that may be taken by women during pregnancy to treat a wide range of mood, anxiety, or psychiatric disorders. The goal of this Registry is to gather information on the safety of these medications during pregnancy, as current data is inconclusive."

CALL TOLL-FREE: 1-866-961-2388

January 28, 2010 8:27 am Filed Under: Effects on Children

FDA Issues Warning Against Use of Bipolar Disorder Drug During Pregnancy

By Katherine Stone December 3, 2009

Today the FDAissued a warning for the drugs valproate sodium, valproic acid and divalproex sodium(sold under the brand names Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene and Depacon). They state that pregnant women should only use valproate if it is essential to manage their medical condition.They state that valproate has an increased risk of causing neural tube defects and other major birth defects such as craniofacial defects and cardiovascular malformations in babies exposed to it during pregnancy. They also state that the risks are particularly high if the drug is taken during the first trimester.

AsDepakote is a drug often used to treat bipolar disorder, I wanted to make sure my readers are aware of this. As always, discuss this with your doctor if you have concerns.

December 3, 2009 9:19 pm Filed Under: Bipolar Disorder

You Don't NEED Antidepressants, Do You?

By Katherine Stone July 6, 2009

I happened upon this great post from a blogger at Scienceblogs.com whowrote about the stigmaaround taking antidepressant medication, a stigma that doesn't exist for most other medications.

"Great Caesar's Ghost!" as my grandmother wouldexclaim … Ihear the samestuff this blogger hears all the time and it drives me CRAZY!!!… wait … where's my antidepressant? …

As Mark Chu-Carroll explains in part of his piece:

"Out of the dozens of people who've heard about my stomach problem, and know about the drugs I take for it, how many have lectured me about how I shouldn't take those nasty drugs? Zero. No one has ever even made a comment about how I shouldn't be taking medications for something that's just uncomfortable. Even knowing that some of the stuff I take for it is addictive, no one, not one single person has ever told me that I didn't need my medication. No one would even consider it.

But depression? It's a very different story."

I'm sure many of you who have taken meds as part of your treatment for postpartum depression or any other perinatal mood or anxiety disorder have come up against this. It's okay to take antibiotics or statins or insulin or whatever else you're prescribed for other ailments, but whoa baby, NOT THE ANTIDEPRESSAAAAAAANTS!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! (meant to simulate screaming sound)

After he concludes his post, you'll find a long andinvolved andamazing discussion — comment after comment from people who have had the same experience, or people who understand how real depression is and that for some it requires treatment with medication, as well as from people who disagree with the use of psychiatric medication but do so with intelligence and kindness, not raving and misstatement of fact.

Antidepressants are not the end all, be all. They aren't perfect. They're not always necessary. They don't work for everybody. They can even be dangerous to some, as can most other medications. But they're also the only thing that works for some. The thing that saves many women's lives.It's not an EITHER/OR situation.

I refuse to be stigmatized about my treatment choices. I refuse to be stigmatized about having a mental illness.

I refuse to be stigmatized.

For more stories from Postpartum Progress on medication and postpartum depression, click the link.

July 6, 2009 10:21 am Filed Under: Medication, Postpartum Depression, Stigma

How to Report Serious Medication Side Effects to the FDA

By Katherine Stone June 5, 2009

If you have experienced any serious adverse affects from taking medication of any kind, there is a reporting process you can use offered by the FDA called MedWatch. You can submit a report to them here and you can read about othergeneral information on medications from the FDAhere.

June 5, 2009 10:00 am Filed Under: Medication

MGH National Pregnancy Registry to Monitor Atypical Antipsychotics

By Katherine Stone December 14, 2008

Massachusetts General Hospital has created a National Pregnancy Registry for women who are taking atypical antipsychotic medication during pregnancy. The registry was created to obtain information about the safety of these medications when used during pregnancy.

If you are a pregnant woman between the ages of 18 and 45 and currently treated with one or more of the following atypical antipsychotics:

Abilify (aripiprazole)
Clozaril (clozapine)
Geodon (ziprasidone)
Invega (paliperidone)
Risperdal (risperidone)
Seroquel (quetiapine)
Zyprexa (olanzapine)

Register now by calling 1-866-961-2388 to help them learn more about the safety of these medicines in pregnancy. The study will involve 3 brief phone interviews over an 8-month period.

December 14, 2008 10:13 pm Filed Under: Bipolar Disorder

Most Effective Treatment for Depression: Therapy & Meds

By Katherine Stone August 12, 2008

Psych Central has reported on a new study released in the Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology that finds that a combination of psychotherapy and medication is usually "the best possible treatment option for depression (acute or chronic) for nearly everyone. If you’re only doing one or the other, you’re likely not going to get well as quickly, it’s that simple."

Manber and colleagues (2008) re-examined previous data on 656 patients with chronic depression to see who would get to remission first. Remission in depression research is simply when a person’s depression score on a commonly used depression quiz (the Hamilton) falls below a certain number.

People who had scores of less than 26 on the Hamilton fared best with the combination treatment — 40% of them attained ‘full remission’ within the 12 week study period. So in just 3 months of combined treatment, your depressive feelings could be significantly decreased.

To read the entire article, click here. I’m not at all surprised by the results of this study. We don’t know exactly what causes depression. It may be a combination of both physical and social factors. A "one-two punch" of medication to help improve the physical processes of the body in some way and therapy to help you work through personal issues makes perfect sense to me as the best way to recover.

August 12, 2008 8:59 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression

Depression and The Medication vs. No Medication Camps

By Katherine Stone July 20, 2008

This is an EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT piece from Therese Borchard at BeliefNet about taking medication for mental illness and all those arguing against it. I think this is a MUST read. She writes about James Gordon, author of "Unstuck," who talks about how drugs aren't necessary to treat depression in an interview with Newsweek.

"I have no doubt Gordon's techniques work for those struggling with mild and moderate depression. My doctor confirmed that. Alternative therapies are wonderful for folks with uncomplicated mood disorders. Maybe I wouldn't need meds if I was in that camp.

But I'm not. What I have is serious, and even Gordon didn't sound all that convincing when Newsweek's Anne Underwood asked him, 'And for severe depression?'

His response: 'That's harder to work with. That's where we need studies.'"

Thanks Therese. Right on girl. I hate how judgmental people are about medication. What I know is that it worked for me. Let me repeat: It. Worked. For. Me. I know lots of people for whom it works. There are others who don't need it. That's fine. Stop judging, world. Just stop it.

P.S. Here's Dr. John Grohol from Psych Central's response to Therese's piece

Click here for more discussion on the topic of taking medication for postpartum depression.

July 20, 2008 1:23 am Filed Under: Medication