Had my first meeting with Pippa Yesterday (08/09/2008).

We discussed medication quite a bit.

She said we had lots of options that we could try to avoid some of the side effects of Olanzapine. However we agreed that Olanzapine wasn't stopping my progress in a major way and that things are going well on the current medication (1g Depakote AM, 1g Depakote 5mg Olanzapine at 7.30pm).

I said I didn't want to make any changes this side of christmas, which others seemed to agree with.

The alternative medications she suggested looking into before we have the CPA handover meeting with Emma, Pippa and Susie next monday are:

Lithium
Aripiprazole (Abilify)
Carbamazepine
Lamotrigine

Pippa said that Lithium was definitely the best known mood stabiliser and most tested and proved (partly due to the length of time it's been around for) and it would reduce the effort needed to manage the illness. However I would need to manage more physical side effects.

Her personal opinion is that, if she were me, given how well things are going, she wouldn't change to lithium but would maybe consider changing Olanzapine to Aripiprazole (this would be done very gradually) at some point in the future.

With regards to my question of "will I ever be able to survive on just Depakote" - she said it's uncertain, but that I'd need a period of complete stability of 3 years before that could be considered. Makes sense.

We completely forgot to ask her if she thought it possible to increase Depakote above 2g/day.

When is my next Liver Function test due? Don't know!