An Introduction to Mood Stabilizers

Imagine trying to walk on a ship that is being tossed around in a stormy sea. One moment the deck is tilting steeply up, and the next it is crashing down. It would be nearly impossible to stay on your feet. For someone with bipolar disorder, their internal emotional world can feel a lot like that ship. The shifts between the highs of mania or hypomania and the lows of depression can be disorienting and debilitating. The job of a mood stabilizer is to calm that sea.

At Televero Health, we help patients understand that mood stabilizers are the foundation of treatment for bipolar disorder. They are a class of medication designed specifically to control these extreme mood swings, allowing you to find your footing on a more level deck.

What Is the Goal of a Mood Stabilizer?

The primary goal of a mood stabilizer is right in its name: to keep your mood stable. This doesn’t mean it will make you feel flat or emotionless. It means it helps to prevent your mood from swinging to the dangerous extremes of mania or the painful depths of depression. It works to keep you in a more “normal” or balanced mood range.

Mood stabilizers can be used in two ways:

To treat acute manic or depressive episodes: When someone is currently in a state of mania or depression, a mood stabilizer can help to bring their mood back to a normal level.
As a maintenance treatment: This is the most important role of a mood stabilizer. When taken every day on a long-term basis, it helps to prevent new mood episodes from occurring, or at least to make them less frequent and less severe if they do happen.

What Are the Different Types of Mood Stabilizers?

The class of mood stabilizers includes several different types of medication. Your doctor will choose one based on your specific symptoms, your medical history, and which type of episodes (manic or depressive) are most problematic for you.

Lithium: This is the original and most well-known mood stabilizer. It has been used for over 70 years and is still considered a gold-standard treatment, particularly for preventing mania. People taking lithium need to have regular blood tests to make sure the level in their body is in a safe and effective range.
Anticonvulsants: A number of medications that were first developed to treat epilepsy (seizures) were found to be very effective at stabilizing mood. They work by calming down the electrical activity in the brain. These are now some of the most commonly prescribed mood stabilizers. Common examples include:
- Valproic Acid (Depakote): Often used for treating acute mania.
- Lamotrigine (Lamictal): Often particularly helpful for preventing the depressive episodes of bipolar disorder.
- Carbamazepine (Tegretol): Another effective option for mania.
Atypical Antipsychotics: As we’ve discussed, many of the newer antipsychotic medications also have powerful mood-stabilizing properties. They can be used alone or in combination with other mood stabilizers to treat both mania and depression. Examples include olanzapine, risperidone, and aripiprazole.

The Importance of Consistency

For a mood stabilizer to work effectively as a maintenance treatment, it must be taken consistently every day, exactly as prescribed. Bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition, and treatment is typically lifelong as well. It can be tempting to stop taking your medication when you have been feeling well for a long time, but this can be very dangerous. Stopping a mood stabilizer can trigger a relapse and lead to a new mood episode.

Working closely with your psychiatrist is key. They will help you find the medication and dose that works best for you and will monitor you for any side effects. By staying on your medication and maintaining a stable routine, you can calm the storms of bipolar disorder and navigate your life with much greater stability and peace.

Key Takeaways

Mood stabilizers are the primary class of medication used to treat bipolar disorder.
Their main job is to control the extreme mood swings of mania and depression, keeping your mood in a more stable range.
Different types of mood stabilizers include lithium, anticonvulsant medications, and some atypical antipsychotics.
Consistent, long-term use of a mood stabilizer is essential for preventing relapse and managing bipolar disorder effectively.

Ready to take the first step? We can help. Get started with Televero Health today.