Q: AD's & Depressive Episodes : Tiagabine (Gabatril) :
Therapy & Bipolar II
Dr.Phelps,
Thank you for your letter. Forgive my acronyms. I used EST to describe
electroshock therapy, instead of electroconvulsive therapy, and I wasn't
certain what term was used for TMS. Your reply was thorough and thoughtful.
I have three more questions for you, if you have the time and energy.
1) Do you feel anti-depressives should be tapered and then discontinued in a
bipolar II patient, after a depressive episode? The patient (my husband)
no longer has hypomanic episodes and suffers from depression most of the time.
Besides Effexor and Wellbutrin, he is on Geodon, Neurontin, Klonopine, and
Trazadone. In the past, his depressive states have been poorly controlled.
2) Have you heard of a new, non-FDA approved drug for Bipolar, called Gabitril?
My husband was on it, grew quite ill and now has elevated liver enzymes( SGOT/AST).
They are slowly declining once he stopped the medication (and no, he does not
drink).
3) In your opinion, what type psychotherapy is best for bipolar II -
psychoanalysis, cognative behavioral therapy or both?
something better?
Again, thank you for your expert
advice and free column. We live in a rural area in Vermont and do not have the
best available resources. I love my husband dearly and we need
help.
Sincerely,
Dear Ms. F' --
Understood (no worries about the acronyms, of course...)
1. This is a large and controversial
question. There might be one important clue in your story here:
husband suffers from depression "most of the time", i.e. not all the
time. This might mean he's "cycling", in which case there's a
general approach to be considered in discussion with his current doc': if
he's really "cycling", then a strategy for dealing with the
depression, beyond the current two-antidepressant-plus-Neurontin approach, which
appears not to be working sufficiently well (maybe better than before though,
from the sound of it?), would be to target "cycling" instead of
targeting "depression".
For that target, from where you are now, the strategy
would shift from emphasis on antidepressants to emphasis on mood stabilizers
(preferably those with antidepressant potential, or at least emphasizing those
in the selection from the
mood
stabilizer list, thus looking particularly at lithium and lamotrigine,
perhaps thinking of them as substitutes for the antidepressants if it was agreed
that the AD's weren't working, or not working well enough).
2. There was a flurry of interest in tiagabine (Gabatril)
which died down in a hurry. I have not used it. Rumor has it that
it's pretty sedating, sort of a substitute for benzodiazepines like Klonopin and
Ativan and Valium, no other clear value. A Pub Med search of "tiagabine
bipolar" turns up an open trial on
17
patients by Suppes et al from the Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network, and as
will note from their abstract, it didn't look too good there either.
3. There is no data (to my knowledge) on therapy for
bipolar II per se. There is data on therapy generally, though, showing
that cognitive/behavioral; interpersonal; some group approaches; work very well
in a wide variety of conditions. There is no such data for psychoanalysis
and there is little reason, in my view, to pursue analysis per se; however, a
good therapist will always use some of the psychodynamic principles (such as an
understanding of the importance of "transference", for example) which
derive originally from Freudian psychotherapy. In your circumstance, it's
going to be tricky to find somebody good. Here are some ideas on
finding
a therapist. Many people, with many different kinds of problems,
can benefit from a good therapist -- including people with bipolar II
!
Dr. Phelps
Published April, 2003
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