Understand Bipolar Disorder, symptoms, medication, facts and diagnosis

Understand Bipolar Disorder

If you have just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, you might feel frightened. The future may seem terribly uncertain. What will this mean for your life, your family, and your job?

But getting an accurate diagnosis is actually good news. It means you can finally get the treatment you need. People with bipolar disorderusually go about 10 years before being accurately diagnosed.

Treatment can make a huge difference. With a combination of things -- good medical care, medication, talk therapy, lifestyle changes, and the support of friends and family -- you can feel better. Bipolar disorder -- or manic depression, as it used to be called -- may not have a cure. But plenty of people with this condition do well; they have families and jobs and live normal lives.

Bipolar disorder is a mental health problem that mainly affects your mood. If you have bipolar disorder, you are likely to have times where you experience:

What Is Bipolar Disorder?

• causes periods of depression that alternate with a less severe form of mania called hypomania.
• causes periods of mania that often alternate with periods ofdepression. These periods might last for weeks or months.

Why Me?

Unmanaged bipolar disorder wreaks havoc in one’s personal, vocational, and family life, and the symptoms recur throughout a person’s life. Over a ten-year period, people with bipolar disorder experience an average of four episodes and five hospitalizations. Even those who have few repeated crises can experience significant ongoing problems between full-blown episodes.

Increased energy, activity, and restlessness

Excessively high, overly good, euphoric mood

Extreme irritability

Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another

Distractibility, inability to concentrate well

Little sleep needed

Unrealistic beliefs in one's abilities and powers

Poor judgment

Spending sprees

A lasting period of behavior that is different from usual

Increased sexual drive

Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol, and sleeping medications

Provocative, intrusive, or aggressive behavior

Denial that anything is wrong

Symptoms & Types

Symptoms

Bipolar Symptoms

Mania Symptoms

Depression Symptoms

What are the warning signs of bipolar disorder?

• a physical exam to rule out any other medical conditions that could cause your symptoms, such as thyroid disease
• a mental health evaluation, which may include a questionnaire and interviews with family members
• a mood-charting diary to keep track of your sleep patterns and daily moods
• using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) to compare your symptoms with the official criteria for bipolar disorder
• Bipolar Disorder in Young Children

Treatment of Bipolar Disorder

Valproate

Carbamazepine

Lithium

Lamotrigine

How to Handle Bipolar Disorders During Pregnancy?

Plan before pregnancy. The chance of having an episode during pregnancy for the bipolar increases dramatically. This needs to be taken into consideration before planning a child. If a plan is established early on, the psychiatrist can place the female on medications that are less likely to affect a baby and prepare her for the mental changes that will occur during the pregnancy and delivery.

Contact the psychiatrist. 

Once the pregnancy test has come back positive, the first doctor the bipolar should call is the psychiatrist. This is due to the potential problems with medication affecting baby. There will be an emergency appointment to determine the best medications and treatment plans to keep both baby and mom safe.

The patient was evaluated with a diagnosis of late-onset bipolar disorder. Evaluating a case from a psychiatric point of view alone may lead to misdiagnosis. This case must be considered valuable in terms of its emphasis on the importance of evaluating patients from a neuropsychiatric point of view.

Bipolar disorder can make you feel utterly alone. But that really isn't the case. More than 2 million adults in the U.S. are coping with bipolar disorder right now.

It's important not to blame yourself for your condition. Bipolar disorder is a physical illness, not a sign of personal weakness. It's like diabetes,heart disease, or any other health condition.

The important thing is to focus on the future. Living with bipolar disorder can be tough. But don't let it hijack your life. Instead, take action and regain control of your health. With dedication and the help of your health care providers, you can feel better again.

What’s the problem with having so much energy? here’s the problem: First, you are probably doing a lot of exaggerated, unwise things during your manic state. Many of your ideas are unrealistic and your perpetual motion and excited, exaggerated talking tend to alienate even the best of friends. Second, your high to end. When it does, you come crashing into deep depression. Ten to fifteen percent of people with bipolar disorder end up committing suicide. Tracy, for example, whom we introduced at the beginning of this booklet, became suicidally depressed after she came down from a manic episode. “There’s no hope,” she said. “My mood swings just get worse and worse, and I’ll never have a normal life.” She lost interest in most things and slept through of the day, finally trying to “end it all.”

At least one person of every one hundred suffers from bipolar disorder. The illness typically begins in the late teens or early twenties with men most likely to first have an episode of mania, and women more likely to first experience a depressive phase. The earlier bipolar disorder begins, the more severe the course of the disorder tends to be.

The good news is that bipolar disorder is one of the most treatable of mental disturbances and not all people suffering serious mood swings fall into the extreme disturbances of bipolar disorder. Some suffer from cyclothymic disorder, a less severe problem with fluctuating moods that last for shorter periods and are much less debilitating.

What are the diagnostic signs of bipolar disorder?

The clinician should be able to recognize not only manic and depressive states, but also hypomania and mixed states. In addition, the clinician should be able to rule out substance abuse as the cause of a current manic state--- evaluating whether there is a history of mania independent of substance abuse. This is not always easy since many bipolar individuals abuse drugs and alcohol.

Medication is essential.

Although the first line of treatment generally entails lithium, anticonvulsants, and atypical anti-psychotics, some patients may also benefit from thyroid augmentation, clozapine, calcium channel blockers, and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Some female patients may benefit from hormonal treatments for mania or hypomania, specifically, tamoxifen and medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). Continuing ECT as maintenance (C-ECT) has shown some promise for alleviating the recurrence of episodes.

A manic episode is diagnosed if an elevated mood occurs with three or more primary symptoms most of the day, nearly every day, for at least one week. With an irritable mood, four additional symptoms must be present for a diagnosis.

Signs and symptoms of a manic episode can include the following:

Bipolar is a complex illness.

There are many different symptoms -- and several different types -- of bipolar disorder. The primary symptoms of the disorder are dramatic and unpredictable mood swings. The various types of bipolar disorder range from mild to severe.

The primary symptoms of bipolar disorder are dramatic and unpredictable mood swings.

Mania symptoms may include excessive happiness, excitement, irritability, restlessness, increased energy, less need for sleep, racing thoughts, high sex drive, and a tendency to make grand and unattainable plans.

Depression symptoms may include sadness, anxiety, irritability, loss of energy, uncontrollable crying, change in appetite causing weight loss or gain, increased need for sleep, difficulty making decisions, and thoughts of death or suicide.

Bipolar disorder can be difficult to diagnose. Unless you have severe mania, in which case the signs are unmistakable, the symptoms can be hard to spot. People who have hypomania, the milder form of the manic side, may feel more energized than usual, more confident and full of ideas, and able to get by on less sleep. Hardly anyone complains about that. You're more likely to seek help if you're suffering from depression, but your doctor may not have the opportunity to observe the manic side then.

When doctors do suspect bipolar disorder, they may use a few different approaches to make the diagnosis:

If you're worried that you might have bipolar disorder, the best thing to do is educate yourself about the different types of mood disorders and their symptoms and then consult your doctor.

It can be harder to address if you’re concerned about a friend or loved one having bipolar disorder. Enlist the help of other friends or family members. People with bipolar disorder often deny any problems, especially during manic episodes. Think of bipolar disorder as you would any other serious disease, and get professional help right away.

Diagnosing bipolar disorder in young children is difficult, because many of the symptoms are similar to those of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or conduct disorders -- or even just normal, childhood behavior. One problem is that medications used for ADHD are often stimulants, which can potentially trigger mania in children with bipolar disorder.

Young children in a manic phase might be more irritable than adults; they may be more likely to have psychotic symptoms, hearing and seeing things that aren't real. During a depressive episode, they might be more likely to complain of physical symptoms, like aches and pains.

One of the most notable differences is that bipolar disorder in children cycles much more quickly. While manic and depressive periods may be separated by weeks, months, or years in adults, they can happen within a single day in children.

Treatment of bipolar disorder is aimed at stabilizing the patient’s mood as much as possible. Even when the treatment proves successful, the patient may still experience both manic and depressive phases. With treatment, that the patient may avoid hospital stays, have a lowered desire to self-injure and function better in all of the phases of the condition.

During treatment, a physician will try to determine the triggers of the mood swings and provide the patient with exercises to complete when these triggering events occur. These exercises may help prevent the moods or lower their severity.

The physician will also use mood stabilizers, some of which include:

Along with mood stabilizers, the doctor might also prescribe antianxiety medications or antipsychotics to handle mood issues. Antidepressants are also used to help the patient deal with the depressive phases. The use of antidepressants raises the likelihood of experiencing hypomanic or manic periods, so they are usually used in conjunction with mood stabilizers. For those patients who do not respond to medicine, electroconvulsive therapy might be used. This therapy consists of electrical currents applied to the patient while under anesthesia and will cause brief seizures when used. After the electroconvulsive therapy application, the physician may also use transcranial magnetic stimulation, which applies magnetic pulses of a high frequency to the patient’s brain.

Those patients experiencing severe symptoms may require hospitalization while the mood is stabilized. This may be necessary for either the manic or depressive stages of the disorder.

Avoiding drugs and alcohol.

Some people with bipolar disorder use alcohol or illegal drugs to try to take away their pain and distress. Both have well-known harmful physical and social effects and are not a substitute for effective treatment and good healthcare.

Some people with bipolar disorder find they can stop misusing alcohol and drugs once they're using effective treatment.

Others may have separate but related problems of alcohol and drug abuse, which may need to be treated separately.

Avoiding alcohol and illegal drugs is an important part of recovery from episodes of manic, hypomanic or depressive symptoms, and can help you gain stability.

Co-occurring Bipolar Disorder and Addiction

People with bipolar disorder experience radical shifts in mood. These “episodes” can last for days or weeks at a time. Episodes may happen as often as several times a week or as little as a few times a year. Bipolar disorder also causes major changes in energy and concentration.

Imbalanced chemicals in the brain and genetics can cause bipolar disorder. A traumatic environment is also a risk factor for bipolar disorder. This disorder can lead to financial and legal troubles, addiction, relationship issues and suicide. Many people with bipolar disorder are tempted to abuse drugs to relieve the troubles caused by their condition.

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Bipolar disorder is not a rare condition and there is no contraindication getting pregnant as long as you are under good medical care.