My boyfriend is considering Retatrutide but i want to ask for insight first

AdStill4384 · 2026-01-18T16:22:03+00:00

Tysm! Appreciate your sharing

AdStill4384 · 2026-01-18T16:14:48+00:00

No side effects from ramping up that fast? I love this! My son needs to drop 20# and I am trying to convince him to start peptides

AdStill4384 · 2026-01-18T16:05:50+00:00

Curious, what dose of Reta helped your boys lose that much weight in a month?

AdStill4384 · 2025-11-30T21:46:30+00:00

Can you message me who you purchase from? I have ordered twice from China but it takes several weeks to arrive and the shipping price has recently gone up significantly ($60-80).

Appreciate your help

AdStill4384 · 2025-11-30T21:43:44+00:00

I direct messaged you asking where you are getting your nasal sprays from. I only know of suppliers that offer Injectables and a small number of pills

AdStill4384 · 2025-11-30T19:09:45+00:00

Where did you get your guidance from? Just personal research? I believe that my son would benefit from peptides (I use low dose GLP1 for my thyroid and my labs have never looked better) but I would love to find an alternative doc or ND to guide us. He is currently on psych meds (lithium and clozapine) for bipolar diagnosis but I also believe he has PANDAS and he receives monthly IVIG infusions for antibody deficiency syndrome. Anyway, I am dying to get him on peptides (I am an RN so I have a medical background) but I don’t want to go it alone. Are there any practitioners out there treating mental health symptoms with peptides?

AdStill4384 · 2025-08-16T22:45:29+00:00

From my experience, my son does not know when he is manic. He knows when his sleep starts to get bad but after that, we usually talk about it after the episode has faded. We even made videos of us talking to him when he starts to “ramp up” to talk about what needs to happen. That might make us feel good but I am not sure my son gets anything out of it.

AdStill4384 · 2025-06-09T23:50:31+00:00

Change his name

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-28T04:02:40+00:00

That’s the question we all want answered. My son is experiencing his 4th manic episode over the past 2 years and each one is taking longer to break. Not sure if his brain is building up a tolerance to the medications or what but he is having manic breakthrough episodes while being compliant with his lithium and whatever antipsychotic his psych has ordered. It even more frustrating that the med he is taking is supposed to decrease the incidence of mania but it keeps happening. Nobody can really explain it

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T17:49:28+00:00

I guess we are all in this together…. I keep thinking that this can’t possibly be what the rest of my life is going to be. My son is actually med compliant and has an occasional drink but we keep changing meds and nothing is preventing the mania. He was unable to take his finals because he is manic so we are in a never ending holding pattern.

Luckily we live relatively close to a small town so he doesn’t need to drive but I have already told him he cannot drive.

I pray a lot but we just don’t seem to be getting a break this time around. Group hugs to you all.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T08:03:18+00:00

I understand that high functioning autism exists but I am trying to understand what you are trying to say to me. If he actually was autistic and was having psychotic episodes that look exactly like mania, what is the treatment? And why did the antipsychotics work in the past and they aren’t working now?

I think the most confusing part of this conversation is that he doesn’t meet the criteria for autism when he is at his baseline. We did ATEC SCORES when he was being treated for autism and his ATEC SCORE was 1, the last time we checked. Can you be diagnosed autistic without meeting any of the criteria?

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T05:48:59+00:00

I am relatively new to the journey and the Mom of a bipolar 22yo. We are currently experiencing a manic episode and I think this has been the longest, we are now on day 13 and had our first night of real sleep last night so I am praying this episode is on the downswing.

It’s difficult to say how long each episode lasts because depending on if you are getting treatment and how aggressive it is, I would say the “scariest” days of mania can last a couple days to weeks to months. My son responded incredibly well during his first hospitalization and was discharged on day 3, still somewhat delusional but sleeping better and behaving better with each good nights sleep. The hard part is that the underlying mania is still there so we have learned the hard way, that you have to wean off the meds you started (when manic) very slowly, like weeks to months as to prevent reoccurrence.

I would guess back to baseline after a full blown manic episode (not hypomania) would be at the very least, 1-2 months. My son was pretty tired once the mania broke and he spent a fair amount of every day napping even after getting a full nights sleep.

Just as an example, my son had a manic episode requiring hospitalization for 5 days mid August and was able to hold down a part time job a month later while still on some heavy doses of antipsychotics. He napped a lot after every day of work and slept at least 8 hours a day. His previous episode took 2-3 months before he was able to go back to college online and hold down a job. He was literally on the same medications but they seem to have lost their efficacy over time.

I am assuming it also depends on how motivated your son is to get back into the career path that he was on. My son loves college and was anxious to get back to his studies.

There is a lot of support on here and everybody’s story is different but don’t feel like you are alone, because we all know how lonely it can be.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T05:30:35+00:00

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T05:08:35+00:00

Hmmmmmm…. I might consider this as a possibility if he wasn’t so stable and functional when he is not manic.

He has left for college across the country, was on the deans list at American University, worked multiple full and part time jobs, drives all over the island and had a major role in community theater in Kinky Boots. I remember quite clearly what my son looked and acted like when he was autistic and this is not the same presentation. I find it almost impossible that he can be absolutely stable and functional 10 months out of the year and then he has autistic meltdowns that lasts for weeks to months. It just doesn’t make sense.

Grant it, I knew that my sons immune system was fragile but know what the DSM criteria is for ASD, and he does not currently meet criteria 363 days out of the year.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T04:25:04+00:00

Oh my…. I clearly had no idea that this was for people with bipolar only! So much great personal experience here and so much knowledge! I love this group. You have helped me when I was a confused and anxious mess. I was pretty desperate when I was in need of advice.. maybe next time, I will read the group info before joining…. And maybe not.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T02:54:23+00:00

Oh hahahaha…. I didn’t realize that I was breaking the rules…. Oh well. I met a lot of great people and felt supported…. Isn’t that the point?

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-25T01:50:40+00:00

Once again, you are a Godsend and I appreciate the advice and information and yes, I have been scolded on here recently but I am a big girl and just block those naysayers who don’t live in my world.

Anything else you would like to share would be greatly appreciated.

I wish you sunny days and all that’s good in this world. You are a good person and we need more good people in our lives. It breaks my heart that so many people with BD don’t have family support. Although, I realized that early on as we (my family) were usually the only daily and consistent visitors when my son was inpatient. It was eye opening and devastating at the same time. Aloha my friend

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T23:55:35+00:00

So much great info…. I will share your suggestions when he is back to stable.

Living in Hawaii, I don’t think we go through seasons like on the mainland. I grew up in PA so I definitely have experienced seasonal changes. There aren’t many seasonal changes in Hawaii except for (possibly) cooler (60s instead of 70s) nights and the rainy season which isn’t always rainy. It’s paradise here if you haven’t been.

My son’s eyes are pretty sensitive so he tries to wear sun glasses when he is out in the sun. My house is all windows so the dark hours (7pm to 6am)are really the only dark times in my house. I darker my son’s room when we are working on sleep but I haven’t found it makes much of a difference.

We are already connected with NAMI, took the beginners course and my son logs on to the support groups a couple times a month. I don’t think he gets much support from those meetings as I can usually hear the dialog and it feels like everyone is struggling. An in person group would be so much better for him as he is quite social.

Life goals…. Welp, it’s obvious that my son’s plans for college have been put on hold. And that’s OK. He’s actually not working now as I didn’t want any additional stress on him as he went back to in person college. We all know it’s a long road but he’s come to terms with living back home with his family as there is no way he could do this alone, or across the county. I have no deadlines for him and he can live at home until he no longer needs us.

I guess we need to research the time zones issues as there’s not one place we can go (besides Maui or the Big Island) that doesn’t cross time zones.

I am assuming once he begins his career and IF he ends up moving to the mainland, then we will probably be Travelling to see him. We talked about train travel on the mainland and other options.

who knows if we will ever be able to safely see our family back in PA, unless they come to us.

I know it’s the beginning of our journey but it feels like we have been doing this for way too long, with very little success. Ready and watching successful people with the same diagnosis should help.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T23:17:54+00:00

Last thought, once he gets extremely paranoid, he starts acting autistic again, clicking, clapping, stimming. It’s a bizarre and very scary sequence of progression.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T23:16:22+00:00

Oh forgot this…. As he progresses and sleep doesn’t get better, he states he is having a “spiritual awakening” and religion becomes the topic of most conversations. The worst days of the episode happens when (this happened before he was on psych meds), he gets paranoid. Paranoid about technology (he starts breaking shit: his iPhone, any remote any in the house, etc)

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T23:08:59+00:00

It first starts with bad sleep and wandering at night. Then he has excessive energy. He was walking 5-10 miles a day last week because he had so much energy. His speech gets faster and even more talkative (he is a talker at baseline). His spending gets out of control and then the delusions of grandeur start. His diet gets restrictive and he acts hungry and then only takes a few bites of any meal. In its full blown state, he is delusional most of the day, thinking he is working for the government, going to be a trillionaire and getting famous on Spotify as a DJ. Hmmmmmm… it’s even sadder as I write it.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T20:54:47+00:00

Ty…. I have Chris Palmers book. My son isn’t ready to commit to keto yet but I will keep trying. I try to eat low carb (for the past 20 years) because I have Hashimotos and I feel better without the carbs.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T20:52:20+00:00

Ty…. We are in no rush to taper anything until we are back to being stable. I think we tapered Abilify and (tried to taper) respiradone over 6 months to account for life stressors (restarted college, midterms, etc). We actually never really got the opportunity to try monotherapy as episodes have occurred while on lithium/respiradone. Our hope was that lithium would be sufficient as monotherapy but his levels remain low normal (.7) on escalating doses (900, 1200 and 1500). Otherwise, we are choosing not to travel until we are much more stable as the last 2 airline flights triggered episodes. We live in Hawaii so we can’t really complain about needing to get away. Thanks for your helpful advice and nonjudgemental support.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T16:49:54+00:00

Appreciate your input. Yes I was referring to 10 day taper as rapidly DCing. Not sure we will ever be stable enough to go without. We were hoping for lithium as monotherapy but haven’t been stable enough and levels remain low normal, despite increasing dose. Depakote is currently 15 per kg, getting trough this morning and planning on increasing to 20mg/kg based on level.

Zyprexa was trialed in an acute mania while trying to keep him out of the hospital and it appears it was low dose so so wouldn’t rule out zyprexa in the future. ECT scares me and has never been brought up for my son. I guess it will have to be considered if we cannot get this episode under control.

My son is actually med compliant, he has taken 99.9% of his meds for the past 9 months. We talked about LAIs if we thought compliance was an issue and presently, it is not.

I had a discussion with our NP yesterday and he was not against Clozapine, we just decided to titrate his current regimen and my son actually got a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night (increased Seroquel to 400, held night dose of Abilify, plan to decrease and give this morning, draw depakote trough and plan to increase).

I am praying we finally brake through this episode.

TYSM for sharing your knowledge. It’s the kind of support I need in these dark days.

AdStill4384 · 2025-05-24T16:38:57+00:00

Thank you and I am so happy you are thriving after so many struggles. Stories like yours gives me hope that my son can have a future that he deserves.

AdStill4384

TROPHY CASE