bbbv10 replied: "Talk to your doctor about switching medications there are a lot of good meds out there you just seem to be taking something not right for you."

The Cheese Queen replied: "My doctor had me on depakote for years, it never worked for me at all. but I never had any negative side effects. ask your doctor about abilify, i take that and it works wonders."

likely s replied: "I was on it for 5 years. Several things happened to me. 1) I gained tons of weight; 2) I become diabetic; 3) I got high blood pressure; 4) My thyroid level went down the tubes & I had to take thyroid medicaion; 5) I had severe chronic diareha (so bad, I couldn't leave the house in 5 years becuase I had to stay by the toilet)--this diareha was also taking it's toll on me because I became very dizzy when I'd walk around & ended up in the E.R. a few times to get fluids pumped into me because the poddy problem was making me lose too much fluid too quickly (diareha is a common side-effect); 6) after 5 years on it, it never relieved any symptoms. Now I'm off psychiatric medications, & I've been back to normal ever since. Considering what depakote is used for, I assume you were diagnosed with some type of mood disorder. Since it's a mood disorder, I'll share this with you as well. All of the symptoms of mood disorders look exactly like what perimenopause produces. Perimenopause occurs in both sexes and can begin as early as age 5. As soon as the reproductive hormone levels start to decrease, people usually get some symptoms. In women, estrogen is the culprit, in men it's testosterone. Perimenopause and menopause terms are usued interchangeably. Perimenopause is the time before the hormone level has reached it's lowest point, till that point it's decreasing in level. For a good list of the symptoms of menopause (also called perimenopause) see these websites: 35 symptoms of menopause Male menopause (with identical symptoms as women) On that list of menopause symptoms, you'll see the symptom of "sleep problems not cause by hot flashes". Having any sleep problems can cause the symptoms of "mania", and you can refer to this website for the list of sleep symptoms & other information on it: A little history for you: I found this out the hard way. I was on bipolar treatment & it turned out to be menopause (I'm female). When I got off the psych medications & used hormone treatments I finally got results--all my symtoms left & never returned, unlike the psych medications which produced no effect except for making me very ill. I know it may to be hard to think you were misdiagnosed in the first place or that hormones could do that, but it's true. Hope this helps. Good luck."