Bipolar Study Update

As many of you know, I've been accepted into a study for Bipolar II depression medication at a local university hospital. The study provides me with 4 months of free medication, tracking of my condition, and a side benefit of $25 grocery store gift cards every time I go in for an appointment (once a week for the first 6 weeks then every other week for the remainder of the study.)

The study is designed to find out if lithium, zoloft, or the combination of both is best for Bipolar II depression. Since I'm obviously depressed (I'm still not certain I'm bipolar, but whatever, the meds are for depression anyway. I'm either ultra rapid cycling bipolar or just depressed with random extremely excited and elevated moods throughout my life.)

Lots of people have expressed concern that I won't ever know what I'm on, since they can't tell me what I was on until after the entire study is completed years from now. If the drugs work, then it sucks that I can't know what I was on. If they don't work, then it also kind of sucks because I don't know what not to try in the future.

But the benefits of participating, I feel, far outweigh the negatives. Having ADD, I struggle to take pills on a regular basis. The structure that comes with participating in this study is really helpful. I was given this massive pillbox that where each day of the week and each time of day has a separate box for the pills I am supposed to take. I also have to track my moods on a daily basis, which is really good to do, especially when I'm on medication to see if it's working.

I started last night taking one blue pill, which is either 300mg of Lithium or a placebo. I take that twice a day. I didn't feel a lot of side effects last night, just some dry mouth that could have been from not drinking enough water.

This month I took one blue pill and one white pill, which is either 25mg of Zoloft or a placebo. I could be on both zoloft and lithium or just one of them, but I'm definitely on something right now. And I definitely am having some side effects. But I can't tell which drug they are caused by...

Still, I'm having issues with dry mouth. I am extremely thirsty. I don't drink a lot of water normally and I've already gone through almost two cups of it and I'm still very dehydrated. My mood, overall, is calmer than normal. But that might be due to half the staff at my office being out today, and looking forward to a 3 day weekend.

I'm curious what will happen when they up my dosage later in the study. SSRI's and lithium aren't supposed to really help your mood right away so either I'm really susceptible to the placebo effect or my brain chemistry is just very sensitive. I don't have any other side effects yet that I can tell.

Have you been on either of these medications before? What were your side effects?