Q. I AM CURRENTLY ON EFFEXOR (BPD &PTSD;), BUT THAT IS ALL. I HAVE DONE EXHAUSTIVE RESEARCH ON MEDICATIONS FOR THESE DISORDERS. SO, I ONLY HAVE TWO QUESTIONS: 1) HOW COME I ONLY FOUND ANT-DEPRESSANTS FOR THIS DISORDER? 2) I JUST STARTED PSYCHOTHERAPY, HOW WILL REMERON AND RISPERDAL DO TO GET ME STABILIZED?

A. There is no one treatment for BPD. You could do great on Risperdal and Remeron. You could also do mediocre or terrible. I happen to like Effexor because I studied it, but I am in favor of whatever works. I am not aware of any work looking at Remeron in BPD, but it will work in many cases because of its mechanism of action. Risperdal may help, as there are a few articles to support its use.

Antidepressants are mostly used in BPD because most folks are depressed and/or anxious. There are studies looking at lithium, antipsychotics, Tegretol (carbamazepine), and Depakote (valproate) that report fair to good success in certain patients.