7 Bipolar Disorder Medications - How They Can Help You

In order to become successful in life, it is quite essential to be healthy and wise. While any sort of physical restrictions of the body can be fought with and dealt with, the central processing unit of our body that is our brain needs to be absolutely perfect in order to live a happy & successful life. For all our errands what we primarily need is a sharp brain so as to understand our environment and act promptly & make well evaluated decisions.

Along with a perfectly working brain, what we need is a control over our emotions. Being over excited or unduly angry all the time would not help us in any way. Quoting in the right terminology all our psychological factors must be balanced enough.

And what if you discover that you yourself have or some of you known to has a brain disorder? One such common brain disorder is bipolar disorder. This disease not only effects our emotions and decisions on daily errands, in extreme cases it can lead to suicides as well.

In order to treat the bipolar disorder the medical experts use a combination of medications & counseling or therapy.

Before getting on a selected list of the medications prescribed for the bipolar disorder, it is essential to understand that these are not the only factors that are effective and can control the disease.

Instead you must understand that medications while being effective are a rather hit and trail method of treatment. All these have their side effects which must be told to the doctor and if need be, the doctor shall change the medication as soon as possible.

Here are some of the medications that are commonly prescribed to the patients suffering with bipolar disorder:

Types of Medications

The medications usually prescribed for bipolar disorder include:
a. Mood stabilizers
b. Anti-psychotics
c. Anti-anxiety
d. Anti-depressants

Their usage

The doctors or psychiatrist usually give a combination of two or more of these medications along with the therapy. These medications strongly enhance the effect of the therapy being given to the patient.

1. Amoxapine or Asendin
This is a common anti-depressant prescribed for the treatment of bipolar and clinical depression. It's commonly known side effects are cotton mouth, dizziness, nausea, headache, cotton mouth, drowsiness, weight gain and increased appetite.

There are also other side effect that are not so common. These include heartburn, diarrhea, sleeplessness, increased sweating and vomiting.

1. Aventyl or Palemor

This is another anti-depressant that is known to have successfully cured bipolar depression. It's side effects are all similar to Amoxapine or Asendin.

2. Zyban or Wellbutrin or Bupropian

This is perhaps the most common medicine prescribed for the bipolar disorder patients. It is a known anti-depressant in terms of the functions it serves but it is chemically not related to the family of anti-depressants. Why exactly is this medicine so successful in treating the bipolar disorder is yet unknown to the medical world.

3. Ativan

This anti-anxiety medication is indeed successful in treating the symptoms pertaining to extreme anxiety in the bipolar disorder patients. Its side effects involve dizziness, imbalance, drowsiness & slurred speech. The less common side effects of this medicine involve abdominal pain, blurred vision, headache, cotton mouth, nausea, weakness and trembling or shakiness.

4. Klonopin

Another popular anti-anxiety medicine, this one has given impressive results in case of the bipolar disorder patients. Its side effects are all similar to Ativan.

5. Tegretol

This is an anti-seizure medicine that was later on approved to be used as an anti-psychotic drug for the bipolar disorder patients. It is commonly prescribed in place of a mood stabilizer, especially for the Bipolar I Disorder patients. It's commonly known side effects involve dizziness, shakiness, vomiting and drowsiness.

6. Depakote

Another anti-seizure medicine, this one is an effective mood stabilizer for the bipolar disorder patients. With the side effects being similar to that of Tegretol, in this case they can become rather severe. Howver, in the recent years Tegretol has replaced Depakote when it comes to the mood stabilizers.

7. Verapamil

This is a calcium blocker useful in treating mania for the bipolar disorder patients. It falls in the family of the medications for blood pressure. Earlier the medical experts said that this medicine has impressive mood stabilizing properties. Now, its usage is almost finishing in case of the bipolar disorder patients as it didn't prove that effective.