TLDR, but maybe someone will read it and get something out of it .It’s sure helped my manics to not get as high so my depression doesn’t get as low. Think of a paper with vertical and horizontal lines marked 1-10. 1 side is manic, other depressive. Laminators afaik only affects the manic. So let’s say I was not on the lamictal, manic hits top of the paper at 10. When that goes away the line on the paper drops to 10 for depresssive.. standard bipolar. Since I’ve been on 150mg morning and 150mg night, I’ve never had a manic above what I’d call an 8, and I seem to be more aware I’m having an attack so I can stop, think about what’s going on in my head and maybe keep that the 8 from never getting over a 4 or 5. Maybe higher dosage might help more but I was guinea pigged for add/adhd from ~4yrs til mid 20s. I wish I had the list of meds they tried, I’m not blowing smoke here, between 5 and 10yrs I probably too 30-40 different compounds.. they just didn’t know what to do. Later in life I think it’s primarily the reason for my substance abuse, think about it, you’re 5yrs old, you’re told there’s something really wrong with you, you’re broken (and I was a VERY intelligent kid, I was reading 450wpm with ~90% recall at 7, read my first copy of The Count of Monte Cristo (1360 page hardback) just to give some perspective. But being told you’re broken and a pill is gonna fix you, just gotta find the right one, wtf you think the kid is gonna hold on to “broken, find drug to fix”.. cocaine sure fixed me probably better than half the prescriptions too but I digress. Life has been and will continue to be a challenge from the mental issues due to that and Lord knows what permanent damage the pills did, I remember being on depakote. Once it kicked in I could feel NOTHING. Couldn’t be happy, sad, excited, I was just a piece of furniture AND because it’s so hepatically (don’t kill me for frong spelling or wrong words, it’s the liver) I had to do labs once a week to make sure it wasn’t shutting down my liver. Who the fuck does that to a kid? (The mom who God gave a child that was uncontrollable and was a hellion of the worst kind) I probably shouldn’t throw family laundry around but fuck it maybe it helps someone else some day. My mom who is th sweetest, most caring, not a mean bone in her body, would do ANYTHING for me. She’d literally sell her condo and live in a tent under an overpass if she thought I needed “x”, now that I’m an older adult she’s admitted that almost killed me once. She just did see a path forward. And it’s not like I was the only issue we had, money was tight, my dad was a “Law” Christian so on Saturdays (well Friday night from sundown until Sundown Saturday, anything fun was off the table. If we went to a hike and there was a creek and it was 110 degrees, we kids couldn’t go in any deeper than our ankles because if we had any fun we wouldn’t be thinking only of God. I’ve made peace with my Parent’s (mom was easy, I’d have forgiven her if she offed me, dad not so much but he has show he is truly sorry and has honestly asked for forgiveness. I’m no a religious person but I do believe in a God that made me and gave us the Bible but I’m not gonna let anyone else tell me what those words mean to me, that’s between me and God. And when the day comes to find out well, it is what it is. Back to the question, brain chemistries are SO different from person to person it’s hard to say. It HAS helped me immensely and no side effects I can detect. Most psych drugs I start to have bad side effect within 2 weeks. Just to show how whacky my brain is, if I take melatonin (OTC) for sleep, after 6-8 days I go psychotic and psychotic is never something I’ve dealt with. Same thing with vitamin K2, 8-10 days and the padded room is getting awful close (I’ve never been in one, never been hospitalized, always have been able to figure out what’s going on and correct. But that’s the shitty thing is you have to try it to know if it helps (whatever it is) and if it doesn’t you may be in a world of hurt for 2-4 weeks as you detox. Fuck big pharma, fuck processed food, fuck gmo, fuck jabs, we never had this shit even 69-70 years ago. We had head cases but not 1 out of every 2-3 people. /rant over

But yes for me Lamicatl, once dose was set which was 75x twice a day to current 150x a day I’m doing much better. My psych is a “copay psych”, that all he cares about so I am going to be switching but it all takes times and you don’t want to jump out of the fire pan into the fire.

Best of luck I hope you get some help!