What do you do finding yourself on a bunch of meds but still doing poorly

It's not a great answer for me...when I reached the point that there were virtually no meds left besides clozapine we spent a long time revisiting meds I'd tried before. If something had helped a bit for a while we tried again. I had gone off lithium after my second toxicity but we tried that again with a different formula (Eskalith) and a very low dose. It (combined with high dose Seroquel, Emsam and probably some others) bought me a couple of years. During that time I imagine we continued retrying some things although I don't have clear memories. After a while I had another lihtium toxicity so we stopped that. I know there was about 2 years between that toxicity and clozapine. I know I was put on gabapentin in the hospital. I was put on topamax at some point in there too although it was supposed to be for migraines. It seemed to have some small effect so I kept taking it even though I couldn't tolerate much. I went off it a year ago and didn't miss it at all. I also remember trying very high dose Seroquel and that helped for a couple years. Eventually I had to go on clozapine and that combined with a little Seroquel has worked extremely well for me.

So I guess it's what might have worked a little in the past, what combinations haven't been tried and is there any far reach med hasn't been tried but at this point it's worth it to give it a shot, even if it's not likely to help.

I don’t even know what I can take that hasn’t been tried. Anything I haven’t tried by now it’s because it hasn’t come out yet or because I reacted really badly to something similar enough to it except antidepressants but I’ve done horribly on every antidepressant or anything close enough to be considered an antidepressant I’ve tried so we all just agreed to not go down that road no matter how depressed or what other meds I’m on.

I know what would help (very unrealistic things that would make my actual life better like being able to take out the trash every time it’s full as soon as it’s full and being able to afford my electric bill in full and rent on time) but I get this feeling my meds are making things worse and I can’t pinpoint a specific med or a specific way of worse, but it was not this joyless, grey, and bad all the time when I was completely unmedicated. I was unhinged, but there’s gotta be a decent option out there. There’s gotta be an option where life is worth believing it might be worth living for sometimes.

I have no answer for you but am here to say I hear you. The idea of starting from scratch in one I've had from time to time. Similar to BeyondtheRainbow's experience, in the last few months, my pdoc started having me try a couple of meds that I had tried and failed with both him and my first pdoc. At my last appointment, he said if we can't get this figured out we'll have to talk about some of the newer meds on the market and "what that all entails." We did try one newer med, but that gave me really bad heart palpitations so I had to stop it even though it was helping my mood.

@MuddyBoots One thing I've come to realize is that medication can only do so much. The rest is up to us. It's hard living so I sympathize with you.