I'm fairly new here, I joined about a week ago. I've been Bipolar since high school, but went undiagnosed until 2002 when I'd go from raging in anger, throwing things to crying, then to bouncing off the walls, then suicidal. My pdoc at the time said I rapid cycle, I can go through all the above in a couple days. Later I can get depressed for 3 or 4 months, then everything seems fantastic--except for the fact that I'm snapping at people because everything seems to take too long. I've tried Zyprexa, Geodon, Risperdone and Risperdal before went generic, and Stellazine, those didn't really help me that much. They just caused a lot of weight gain or muscle spasms respectively.
Fast forward to this year. I have a new pdoc since late last year. She allowed me to change to Abilify, I am doing a lot better. At first, I had muscle spasms switching from Risperdone to the Abilify, but that has resolved itself. My pdoc has recommended that I get more exercise to get down to a healthier weight as the other anti-psychotics put me up into the obese range. So I ride an exercise bike, walk, and am going to try to start doing some beginner's weight lifting exercise routines--though some of them look pretty hard. I still need to work out some kinks with my medicine though. I'm on 300mg of Effexor XR, I think that's a little much as the max dose is 225mg, but my pdoc wanted to be on the safe side when I switched to the Abilify.
When I was on Geodon, I felt horrible, was often suicidal and slept about a total of 12 hours a day. But I'm glad I had it. It got me out of the State Hospital 3 years ago and helped take a lot of the psychosis that caused me to be in a mental hospital, and helped me relate better to people.
Finally, I do have one question=does anyone here rapid cycle=one day bouncing off the wall, the next day extremely agitated-enough to cause hypertension-despite being on 360mg of a blood pressure pill every night-then depressed for a week or more?