No medications have helped my conditions. What's wrong?

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So my current Dx is: asperger's, ADD, OCD, bipolar, and generalized anxiety disorder.

I've been on Vyvanse, Intuniv, Haldol, Seroquel, and Lamotragine. I'm currently taking 900mg of Lithium with an Amiloride chaser, 250mg of Depakote, and .5mg of Haldol.

It's just not doing anything for me. I'm bored with everything I do in my life, I think about doing bad things, I don't sleep well, I'm still having outbursts of anger, low frustration tolerance, etc.

I don't feel like my doctor is an idiot or anything. I just feel like I'm difficult to treat. Does anyone have any suggestions?

The feelings of boredom and apathy could be caused by the meds themselves. That's how I felt when I kept getting shuffled from one pill to another back when I was younger. Exercising helps with this a lot.

Well if all those meds aren't doing anything at all for you, I would talk to your doctor about getting off them....its probably not worth all the possible side effects and damage long term use of many of those drugs could do, if they aren't even helping with anything. I hope your doctors solution would not be just throw more meds on top of all those though.

I'm on seroquel and aropax at the moment and I take quite high dosages. For me it took a good 3-4 months for it to start working properly. My sleep is awful. I have really vivid dreams and wake up tired in the morning. Whether it's the meds causing this I'm not sure. My anger outbursts and frustration is basically because my life is going nowhere atm. If you can find something to focus on and if you're able to maintain a good productive routine everyday it will definitely help. As one of the previous posters said exercise does help a lot as would taking a multivitamin everyday.
The most important thing for people with anxiety is a focus. if you can find that, it makes the stress of day to day living much easier to control.

Radda radda radda radda - (great Schnitzel avvie btw)

I am on seroquel, what you will find is that on its own it will not be effective enough. You see seroquel is a emotional balancer not an anti-deppresant try taking this with 20mg of fluoxytine and it may work

This is only intended to help biopolar issues- i am one so i know what im on about

I see my doctor next week. From my own research, a lot of the boredom and emptiness I'm feeling could come from my ADD. He stopped giving my the Vyvanse because I felt like it wore off later in the day and I couldn't focus on school. We've been talking about doing Adderall three times a day and I kind of want to try that. If that doesn't work, then I don't see the point of being on medication. It would just be nice to not be bored by everything. Thanks for the advice.

Just be sure that your doctor takes great care in prescribing you stimulants for your ADD. Stimulants are notorious for inducing (hypo)mania in bipolar patients. If you know that you have comorbid ADD (and that the ADD symptoms aren't part of your bipolar disorder), have your doctor make sure your mood stabilizers are working effectively before adding stimulants. Also, it's a known fact that more comorbidities makes it harder for a patient to be treated. The more disorders you add, the more neurotransmitter abnormalities you add, and medications for one disorder can make symptoms of another disorder worse (as explained above).

Is it really necessary for you to be on lithium AND Depakote AND Haldol? Does lithium or Depakote not work for you by itself? Why are you taking Haldol? While Haldol is a great anti-psychotic, the risk of tardive dyskinesia in conventional anti-psychotics makes them a last resort treatment nowadays. Not saying that the three medications aren't necessary for YOU, just that it's a bit unusual, mostly the Haldol part You might want to ask your doctor about newer medications that lower glutamate in the brain. There has been great initial findings using the ALS drug riluzole in treatment-resistant OCD. It's been found that OCD is a hyperglutamatergic state, and since glutamate also tends to be heightened in mania, this is a treatment that probably wouldn't induce a manic episode. Various atypical anti-psychotics are also being looked at for treatment-resistant OCD. Before I found Anafranil for my SSRI-resistant OCD, my psychiatrist had me try Abilify. It didn't work for me, but Abilify and Seroquel (which I know you've tried) have shown success in some.

Please don't take advice about getting off your meds from random people on these forums. You may actually be having some benefit from the meds, but just aren't aware of it. You might want to ask your doctor about other types of therapy in addition to the meds. I am a big believer in cognitive therapy. I hope things get better for you.

I am a neuroscientist. I know what I'm talking about. And of course they need to talk to their doctor before stopping any medications. However, some doctors don't explain potential risks and bad interactions of psych medications. That is why I try to alert people to potential problems when I don't see evidence that they have been told of the risks.

I think it is reasonable to suggest if the medications aren't helping to talk to the doctor about changing them or getting off of them...drugs can have negative side effects, so if a certain drug is not helping anything it would not make sense to take it. But I did specify 'discuss with your doctor. so what exactly is the problem, someone posted a thread......I put my opinion if you don't like it you don't have to read it.

I'm not sure if it's necessary. They don't seem to work by themselves. I'm most likely on the Haldol because of the homicidal ideation and torture fantasies that I can't control. I'm actually calmed by the site of somebody in pain. If that's not a reason to take an antipsychotic, I don't know what is. But you're the neuroscientist, so I really don't know.

The thought occurred that I may not have a chemical imbalance, but a personality disorder. Any tests I've taken, including the MMPI score me high for borderline, antisocial, histrionic, paranoid, and a few others. Perhaps I have some sort of mixed personality disorder? I really don't know how much water these tests hold. I haven't asked my doctor because I don't feel right saying "this is what I think I have" when I'm not the one with the medical degree. I just tell them how I feel and they tell me what I may or may not have.

It could very well be a personality disorder, and PDs are often misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder (and vice versa). The Haldol makes sense now that you've said all three of the medications don't work alone. In that type of case, being on three medications is necessary. But in some, lithium or Depakote alone is all that is needed, which is why I was curious. You seem to be a person who needs a "cocktail" of different medications to achieve the desired effect.

If you've done a good bit of research and you feel that a specific diagnosis fits you, by all means, tell your doctor. The only reason I ended up with an official diagnosis of OCD is because I sought help for OCD specifically. I KNEW that I had OCD after lots of self-researching. In addition, my psychiatrist suspected cyclothymia before I received my AS diagnosis, and I told him flat-out that it was very unlikely that I was bipolar. Too many things didn't add up (like how I had been trying SSRIs for OCD during late adolescence and never became manic). Once I learned about AS, my mood swings made sense.

Unfortunately, since there is no official test yet to diagnose neuropsych disorders, the diagnosis process often is based on stereotypical "textbook" symptoms and what the patient describes. I'm a believer that, if you bring up a diagnosis that fits you after you've properly researched it (and aren't just having a case of "medical student syndrome"/overdiagnosis), and your doctor doesn't respect your knowledge, take you seriously, and/or explain to you why that diagnosis doesn't fit you, try to find another doctor who listens to you. Obviously, you don't want a doctor who hands out diagnoses like they're candy, but you also don't want a doctor who doesn't respect your opinions. While you can never replace a psychiatrist's knowledge of medication effects and dosages, nobody can replace YOU for knowing what's going on inside your mind and what you're feeling.

I've tried to tell my doctors that I think I fit certain personality types, but I don't think they believe it because I don't fit every last criteria of the typical personality type. This is why I feel I might have mixed personality disorder. I have symptoms of more than one personality disorder, but not enough of a single one for a specific diagnosis. Does that sound logical? If you were my doctor would you want to see which symptoms I thought I had for each personality disorder?

If I was a doctor I know I would....have you tried explaining any of this to them?

Ah, I see. Yes, sadly, there's not really a diagnosis of "personality disorder, not otherwise specified", like there is for most other DSM disorder categories. You are likely an atypical case, so that makes you harder both to diagnose and treat. Do you feel your bipolar diagnosis fits? Do you have personality disorder symptoms even when your mood is stabilized?

I feel that borderline fits me a lot better with my obnoxious fear of being abandoned, anger, impulsiveness, and constant change in what I want to do in life. I've also been told that I have PTSD, but that would only describe my violent thoughts and anger outbursts. Antisocial would explain that, plus some other traits that I have, like taking advantage of people, taking what I want, always being bored, and taking pleasure in watching people suffer. I actually go on shock sites and look at people who are injured or dying and it has a calming effect on me (slows my breathing and heart rate). The only exception is that I wouldn't typically do that to the two or so people that I'm close with, though I have lied to them about small things. Paranoid would explain my detachment from society due to extreme lack of trust, the way I think that people are always talking behind my back about me, the fact that I hate working with others because I feel that they'll hold me back, and my thoughts of people only associating with me for some reason other than what they say. I'm pretty sure narcissism fits in there somewhere, as well as schizoid.

My mood never really stabilizes at any point. My mood is usually very flat, I'm always hostile and ready to jump down somebody's throat, I feel very empty, and I'm constantly bored.