Not sure
So I was on this app maybe a year ago. A listener convinced me to seek out professional therapy - and I did. Fast forward to now - after being on many different antidepressants and none of them working well - my doctor (GP) wanted me to speak to another mental health provider who wanted me to see a psychiatrist.
I did and she put me on Latuda - but never really told me why. Do psychiatrists generally prescribe this without a bipolar diagnosis (I don't have schizophrenia). I mean I've always suspected bipolar 2 but idk.
@modestHuman3307
Latuda is an antipsychotic to help treat schizophrenia, but it is also a mood stabilizer that can help with bipolar disorder and depression. I hope this new medication is being helpful for you and if you have concerns about the medication diagnosis with the lack of a diagnosis for bipolar disorder you can reach out to your GP about it and they can answer our questions.
@modestHuman3307
By the time my psychiatrist made her official diagnosis of Bipolar 2, my GP and a few other people in the medical system had made 5-6 unofficial diagnosis of Bipolar 2, with the psychiatrist's first guess being type 1. My GP had already started me on my antipsycotic but at less than 1/2 of what the psychiatrist put me up to in the first 2 months of seeing her (she also had me cold turkey the antidepressant he'd started 4 months previous). Coming up on 2 years now that the majority of my symptoms are controlled with just the antipsychotic (at a fairly high dose for monotherapy).
I know if I miss 2 days of that med, hypomania comes on strong.
We've added something for sleep, as well as a different antidepressant, in this last year. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm stopping 1-2 of those in 2019.
To answer your question, with apologies for taking so long, no, psychiatrists do not generally prescribe Latuda (Lurasidone) without a bipolar diagnosis, but they do sometimes.
As far as I can tell, this is because sometimes depression is associated with what they call "mixed features", which are not sufficient to diagnose bipolar disorder, but which mean the combination antidepressant plus antipsychotic effects of Lurasidone may work well.
Here's a research paper from 2016 about it: Lurasidone for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder With Mixed Features
I hope the treatment is working for you.
@modestHuman3307
