Abilify and the bipolar hubby...

Well, I accompanied DH to his appointment with the pdoc. The pdoc is the one who first put DH on Lithium and we saw such big changes...so I have a lot of faith in the guy. Anyhow, I told him that DH was sleeping more, doing less, having more depressive thoughts than he had been there for a time. He's still doing REALLY GOOD compared to how he was about a year ago, but for a while he was doing better than this, so I thought the pdoc needed to know.

Anyhow, deciding what to do was made significantly more difficult because DH, despite having several appointments scheduled, has not gone to get his lithium blood levels checked since October!!! Same with his thyroid. So either of those (or something else, even) could ultimately be the cause of what we're seeing, but we don't know for sure. DH actually had another appointment today for blood work, but he missed that one, too.

So the pdoc suggested Abilify. Supposedly it kind of gives anti-depressants a kick in the rear. It's a small dose, 5mg. From what I saw when I looked online, it can help improve concentration and motivation to someone who is already on some other antidepressant(s). DH is on Effexor XR as his antidepressant, and he is also on Seroquel, Lamictal and (of course) Lithium. I'm not yet sure what to think of the Abilify. I'm hopeful. It sounds like it could be very helpful.

We also found a brochure in the pdocs waiting room, regarding a jobs program for disabled workers, and it is not the same program that he has been working with. So I am hopeful about that, too, although DH still has to make the phone call...

Anyhow, today I asked DH if he thought the Abilify was doing anything yet. He said no. I really didn't expect much, I know most drugs take more than a day to work. But with the Lithium I was seeing a changed person after about three days, so I was just hoping....DH still complained about being tired, and not having any motivation...but...

Let me tell you about this: One of our animals somehow got through the vet visit without apparently being diagnosed with ear mites. I'm thinking that it was probably Twilight, our black kitty, who came into our house as a pregnant stray last year. Since evidence of earmites (without a microscope anyways) is black yuck in the ears, we didn't see it, and apparently neither did the vet when he did her leukemia test and later spayed her. That's all I can figure, as it is routine when I bring a "new" cat in there, that they automatically check for ear mites, so I don't know what happened....anyhow, I've been noticing a lot of scratching going on in our house. And some black yuck in ears. One cat brought to the vet had ear mites. And that was a cat that we had had for quite some time, so we had a multi-cat problem. Sigh...anyhow, the vet offers two remedies for this. First, Revolution, which is like a flea spot-on that also kills ear mites, and Second, their run-of-the-mill put-drops-in-ears ear mite medicine. My first choice would definitely be the Revolution. Way easier and more dependable. But to treat our household it would be $300. To buy the other medicine to treat our household would be about $25. So, budget being what it was, I opted for the cheaper one....which requires each animal to get drops in each ear every day for four days straight. And then we get to do it again in 3 weeks. We started yesterday. I don't think any of the animals were thrilled with the whole thing. I know I wasn't.

I was planning on coming home from work tonite to do them again. But DH just called me to tell me that he did them, every single one!!! And in his next sentence, he was "going to see what he could find to do for a while." I know it's probably too early to blame the Abilify, but whatever it is, I like it!