Bipolar Disorder Symptoms and Information

Bipolar disorder is a complex and difficult to treat mental disorder. My mother has it and I know all about bipolar disorder symptoms. She was always depressed, and she often spent long periods in bed, after which she would get up and be able to function again. During these times when she was depressed, which lasted about a week or two, it was almost impossible to talk to her. She was also a single parent when I was in high school, and one day she started behaving very strangely. She was doing very irrational things which was pretty scary, because I had no idea where it was coming from.

We had to phone the doctor which came to our house and gave her an injection. She also had to go to a mental hospital. We found out that she was very sick, with a disease called bipolar disorder. She would take a long time to be able to function normally again, and she would be impossible to live with for a while too. This meant I had to spend my final year in high school living in a friend's house. My mother started using medication which was supposed to help her with her bipolar disease, but it had a lot of side effects. One of the medications which she used was lithium, which was particularly nasty.

My mother always had this idea in her head that she wanted to stop using the medication, and she did so on many occasions, with dire results. She always ended up back in the hospital. But who could really blame her? The medication had terrible side effects, and when she had a manic episode she felt fantastic. A manic episode is when the person with bipolar disease becomes either very happy or very depressed, like my mother did when I was in high school. Therefore bipolar disorder is also called manic depression.

A person with bipolar disease can can take years before they display these symptoms of bipolar disorder, as was the case with my mother. She never had a manic episode before in her whole life. It took many years and visits to the hospital and heartache for her loved ones before she realized that she had to use medication. She now lives in France with her husband, and the doctors there seem to be taking pretty good care of her. Having said that, she recently came back from France to visit, and she was in terrible shape. I was shocked to see her in fact, and she was shaking which had to do with the wrong combination of medication.

As soon as the doctors adjusted her medication it became better. She is currently visiting again, and I was glad to see she was in better shape than the last time. As you can see, bipolar disorder symptoms are no joke, and bipolar disease is a very serious and complex disease which takes its toll not only on the sufferer, but also on their family and friends.

As I stated before, bipolar disorder symptoms include states of abnormal mood elevation and abnormal depression, which interferes with normal functioning. It is estimated to affect 5 million Americans, about 1 in 45 adults. It is equally prevalent in men and women, and is found across all cultures and races. Bipolar disorder is hard to diagnose, because not everyone's symptoms are the same, and it can't be diagnosed with a blood test. The disease is believed to be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Bipolar disorder can appear to be normal clinical depression, but it is different because of states of mania. Some patients experience very little mania however, while other experience mainly manic symptoms. Therefore bipolar disorder is difficult to diagnose even for health professionals.

There are basically four phases or episodes of bi polar disorder symptoms:

• Depressive episode - This episode has all the symptoms of normal clinical depression, like feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, anxiety, loneliness, hopelessness, sleep disturbances, tiredness and loss of interest in otherwise enjoyable activities, loss of libido, concentration problems, self hate, apathy or indifference, depersonalization, shyness or social phobia, irritability, chronic pain, loss of motivation, and suicidal tendencies. In extreme cases a patient may become psychotic.
• Manic episode - This is the episode that differentiates bipolar disorder symptoms from the symptoms of normal clinical depression. In a manic episode a person's mood becomes elevated, expansive and irritable. They commonly experience having more energy and needing less sleep. Thoughts race and attention span is short. A person loses judgement and can go on spending sprees like I saw my mother do often. Substance abuse can take place, such as alcohol, cocaine or sleeping pills. The person may feel like they are on a mission and that they are unstoppable, or that they are on some kind of special mission. Libido can increase. People in this episode can experience severe anxiety and irritability, while others can experience euphoria and expansiveness. In this state a person can also experience psychosis.
• Hypomanic episode - In this phase of the bipolar disorder symptoms a person experience something similar to mania, but in a much milder form. Hypomania can be difficult to diagnose because it looks like a person is just experiencing normal happiness. In fact it would be normal happiness if it wasn't accompanied by its depression counterpart.
• Mixed affective episode - In this state mania and clinical depression is experienced simultaneously.

As with clinical depression, both psychotherapy and medication can play and important role in bipolar disorder treatment. Psychotherapy is useful because it can help a person to remove emotional issues which makes bipolar disorder worse. A person with bipolar disorder is already suffering from depression due to chemical imbalances in their brains, and emotional issues makes depression worse. This is the case with my mother, because she grew up in a loveless environment, and then she had bipolar disorder on top of that.

Then medication is very important as well. Medication will help with mood stabilising and the extreme mood swings. Anti depressants does not seem to work as bipolar disorder treatment as it can trigger mania. Normally a combination of medications are used, and it is a trial and error kind of thing. Medication can cause a reduction in bipolar disorder symptoms, or even complete remission. In this case it is important to continue medication, because as was the case with my mother, relapse can and will occur. This can be difficult, because the medication have side effects and can have a mood blunting effect.

The prognosis for many people with bipolar disorder is good after treatment, given that they receive an accurate diagnoses. Bipolar disease is often under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed, and many people don't receive timely and competent treatment. I know this all to well with my mother. She often didn't receive the right treatment, and it was diagnosed at a very late stage in her life. Bipolar disorder treatment includes good management of the disease. The right medicine in the right dosage, a good relationship between patient and a competent doctor or therapist, a good knowledge of the disease, as well as good overall health which includes exercise, good nutrition and a regulated stress level is all necessary for effective bipolar disorder treatment.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder