Alright, in this video we're going to be going over mood stabilizers and like we talked about these are used primarily to treat bipolar disorder. So the main purpose of mood stabilizers is going to be to treat both the depressive and the manic episodes. So with bipolar disorder, we don't want to just be giving antidepressants usually because that's really only treating half of the person's symptoms. And for some bipolar patients, taking antidepressants can actually trigger manic episodes. So, we really need a medication that stabilizes the mood and treats both of those types of symptoms.

So, the main type of drug that we use here is a drug called lithium. The mechanism of action for lithium is actually not fully understood. We don't really know how it works. Lithium seems to do a lot of different things in the brain and that can even vary from person to person, so we don't totally know how it works, but for many bipolar patients if we get that dosage right it can be a really effective mood stabilizer. Now, like all of our drug classes, it does come with some negative side effects, and a lot of the negative side effects of lithium kind of involve the kidneys. So something that we can see is excessive thirst as well as excessive urination because the person is taking in so much water because they're constantly getting signals of being thirsty.

We can also see pretty extreme weight gain and a lot of that is water weight because the person is taking in so much excessive water. And then finally, with long-term use, especially if dosage is not quite right, we can see kidney dysfunction, but again that would be more with long-term use. Now, one thing to be aware of is that for bipolar patients who do not respond well to lithium or maybe can't take it because they have a pre-existing kidney condition, anticonvulsant medication can sometimes be used to treat bipolar disorder as well. So, this of course is the type of medication that you would give a person who has a seizure disorder or epilepsy typically. And we're not going to go over this in any more detail, you don't have to know the mechanism of action or anything, but just be aware that anticonvulsant medications can be effective mood stabilizers for people who don't respond well to lithium.

Alright, so those are our mood stabilizers and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye bye.