BPDFamily.com

Has anyone had any success with meds for BPD? My dBPDh has been thru SSRI's (made him worse!), Lamictal (did zero!), and now Zyprexa (time will tell).

It has been three years since his diagnosis and, even after therapy all this time, sadly , he is actually getting worse and has started to "self medicate" with things that I find I can't even write about.

It is difficult to watch him to this to himself and be aware that all I can do is watch ... .  


DBNC

Yunno, I think Self-Injury was about her best.

She studied it and was usually fairly safe and clean about how she would cut herself.   Worked quickly and very effectively.  Bothered me to start, but when she explained it, it made sense, and I did notice it helped.

At least until I went on a three day trip.  Came back and she had dyed her hair bright pink and in bunches of braids.  Had cut herself up both arms and was painting with blood on the walls. 

I freaked out and she went to T.  That sort of helped for a bit, they took her off the 'scripts that did not really do much, anyway.  Been spotty with an Alcohol relapse, long-term Eating Disorder, and then just a couple of months ago, Re-Hab for that. 

So she has been doing 90 meetings in the last 90 days, and weekly T.  Seems to have stablized, but our daughter is predicting "The Hurricane" to hit about 30 to 60 days from now.

Oh well.

My wife has benefited from medication, but then she is also diagnosed with bipolar (or currently "mood disorder NOS" in addition to BPD.

Are you "allowed" to give feedback to his psychiatrist?  Is that something he is OK with?

You could always do it one-way, regardless of whether there is a release or whether your husband wants you to.  You can leave a message for the doctor, send a letter, fax, or email - just be prepared for his psychiatrist to tell him about your communication.

It's a pretty individualized thing but, yes, my dBPDh has improved with medication. Similar to your situation some things made him worse, some didn't do anything at all. Right now he's taking Cymbalta and Seroquel and those seem to help.

Meds can help certain aspects that are common among pwBPD, depression, anxiety, panic disorders and sometimes mood swings. But they wont fix BPD as a whole, sometimes they will have an effect, sometimes they wont. Most have side effects and so the pros and cons need to weighed up.

But they need to be carefully monitored and controlled. It is too easy for a pwBPD to become addicted to the search for the right fix combo. Constantly leaning ,more and more on meds as a means to avoid the hardships of T.


I had that too, like a scene from a horror movie, hate messages scrawled in blood on the windows and mirrors.

So glad we got past that phase

Does the seroquel make him drowsy? Used to knock my partner out, so switched to a non sedative antipsychotic, amisulpride.

Problems also arise because over reliance on these meds means they struggle to get by without them. For example my partner takes so many sedating meds that she would be incapable of sleep if she comes off them.

One pill can make a difference but not totally fix the particular problem so it is too easy to believe two must be better and so on. You have to be realistic with BPD that meds generally only achieve lessening of symptoms not elimination

My husband has never had good expeirience with drugs. He's taken them on and off his entire life. Now that he has been diagnosed he complains that any drug he takes hurts his stomach. He will also take them for maybe one day, two days would be a miracle and usually tells me they are causing him too many side effects . So basically he just finds a reason not to take them no matter what it is.

He is Bipolar and will take meds for that when he has to. He has so many scripts that he's gotten filled, taken one or two pills and never touched again. He has sevral that he will take if he's in a particularly bad mood and having a hard time calming down, those basically just knock him out and it's rare that he takes those as well.

He is seeing a therapist on a weekly basis, so far that's all I am asking of him, he seems to be doing better with that alone.

Absolutely, my BPDh is much improved on the meds.  He is on Prosac and Buspar.  He went off them for a while just to see if he still needed them, and life became a nightmare again. 

While on the meds, his episodes were just as terrible, but the frequency was greatly reduced, making life much for manageable.

Thank you.  ssssoo much.  Thank you.

============

She chopped her finger pretty deep the day before yesterday. 

While doing special cooking for the eating disorder. 

I think she was/is stressing, but I did not want to ask if it was self-inflicted. 

She is going off to 4 days of Re-Hab camp before starting as a T . . . next week.

omigod.  The blind leading the blind.

 

I thank all of you for your replies  -  the issue of meds came up because the therapy is not going very well and my dPBDh has been self-medicating with street drugs  - something that scares the heck out of me.

Not having any experience with this kinda stuff, I worry for him when he leaves. I think about overdose, police, the awful place he goes to get them. It is hard to know that all I can do is mentally wrap him an a blanket and give him to God to take care of. It is ... .  so very sad ... .  and made sadder still because, dummy me, I had thought he was doing better at one point.

I guess that is all part of this, huh?

I am looking into a DBT residential facility for him and asked his parents (mine are deceased) for financial help to make it happen. Crazy thing is - they are sceptical about it. Guess "out of sight, out of mind" fits here.

And yes, today, I am trying to take care of myself. He is somewhere out there.- and I, well I am trying to do all the things for me that I can't do while he is here. (I just made me a wonderful omlet for lunch and ate it in front of mindless TV. How cool is that?)

All I keep thinking is "God grant me the serenity ... .  

It does tend to make him drowsy. He only takes it before bed. Although he works shifts so that messes things around a bit. His P wants him to take the seroquel during the day as well, but that's not practical due to the drowsiness. I wonder if the amisulpride might be an option. I'll look into it. Thanks for that!

Meds work best once you can do your best to make home life more stable and less threatening by using the tools here to reduce conflict and tension.

Meds will not work if you keep getting involved in pointless conflict over trivial issues.

In other words environment and medication help each other if either one is not right, it throws the other out.

Once you get the home environment as stable as you can, incorporated any meds regime that may may helpful, then they are in a better head space to make effective use of T.