A New Cherry for the Drug Cocktail: Thyroid Medication

Forget that researchers don't exactly know why Lithium and other mood stabilizers work, except that it has something to do with seratonin levels. Now there's a new study out that suggests that users with treatment resistant bipolar I and II may benefit from the addition of a thyroid hormone called T3,

This study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders was a chart review of patients treated in a private clinic between 2002 and 2006. Patients in the study had been unsuccessfully treated with an average of 14 other medications before starting T3. The results were quite encouraging: improvement was experienced by 84%, and 33% experienced full remission. None of the patients experienced a switch into hypomania, and only 16 discontinued due to side effects.

So, if you're on a drug hunt, you might point your perscribing doctor to this study and see if this addition to the chemical stew might make the difference.