What medications can treat bipolar disorder?
Prescribing for bipolar disorder is a difficult one.
Doctors have to judge exactly how to organise your medication so that you end up with a balanced mood.
Achieving a balance is important to prevent patients entering one phase from another, for example, from manic to depressive or visa versa.
There is a variety of different medications to treat people with bipolar disorder – the ones you end up taking depend on your personal situation.
We can use medication to:
- Treat severe episodes of mania, depression or hypomania and mixed episodes. This is called acute therapy.
- Prevent future episodes. This is called maintenance therapy.
So if you have got bipolar disorder, you will probably need to take a combination of medications.
