Therapeutic Drug Levels in Bipolar Disorder Treatment

The血液中药物的治疗水平是预期该药物的范围，而不会对患者引起任何严重问题。您的医生可以要求测试以衡量特定药物的数量serum portion of your blood. Your doctor will check those levels against established ranges for that drug to determine if the value is therapeutic or not.

Medication Dosage and Administration

The most important bipolar disorder drugs to be monitored regularly are these threemood stabilizers:

• Lithium
• Depakote, Depakene(sodium valproate, valproic acid)
• Tegretol（Carbamazepine）

The therapeutic levels of these drugs are dependent upon the half-life of the drugs as determined by the serum blood test. After test results are taken, proper dosage and administration of these mood stabilizers can commence. After your blood test is administered, usually by a phlebotomist in a lab setting, your results will be shared with your doctor who will determine if the amount of medication and the frequency with which you take them should be changed.

If your medication dosage is off you could experience symptoms that include mood swings or躁狂剧集，你的精神活性药物意味着预防。

How Long Does It Take to Reach Therapeutic Levels?

从血清血液测试中，您的医疗提供者应该能够确定您的药物的半衰期，并会知道药物需要多少小时或几天以达到治疗水平。虽然一些药物只有1-4小时的半衰期，例如乙酰氨基酚，但有些情绪稳定剂有1-2天的半衰期。药物的半衰期越长，达到治疗水平的时间越长，即药物生效。

As you and your family members work through your diagnosis, be sure to keep track of your medications and have someone equally accountable for you so that you don't miss a dose and render your medication ineffective, or worse risk too much medication in your blood, which could be toxic.