Posted by linkadge on August 30, 2007, at 8:34:06
In reply to Re: Bipolar questions » linkadge, posted by polarbear206 on August 30, 2007, at 8:08:36
But the problem is, that for pure SAD, mood stabilizers rarly work.
Drugs like wellbutrin are approved for SAD, but are not approved for bipolar depression.
No mood stabilizers are approved for SAD, because its proably impossable to demonstrate effiacy.
There is some significant opposition to the arugment of a number of these *bipolar varients* being bipolar. There is argument that antidepressant induced mania, is *not* indicative of bipolar and should get its own classification for instance.
(Parkinsons meds can induce psychosis, that doesn't mean the patient has latent schizophrenia!)
There are a number of different oppinions about what constitutes bipolar disorder these days. There is little agreement, as you are probably aware.
Calling recurrent unipolar disoder, bipolar is not yet commonpractice, and most doctors won't prescribe bipolar meds unless there is a history of mania or hypomania.
Show me studies of efficacy of a mood stabilizer for SAD! Not just a bunch of cases studies, cause its clear that some with SAD may actually have bipolar, but I bet you can't find an open study demonstrating the efficacy of a mood stabilizer in SAD who have no symptom of bipolar.
If a mood stabilizer works, then fine, but there would be doctors who would call everybody bipolar, which is not really advantagious IMHO.
Linkadge
poster:linkadge
thread:779563
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070824/msgs/779699.html