bipolar disorder?

Answer 1

What's the question?

Answer 2

Bipolar disorder (also known as "manic depression") is often not recognized by the patient, relatives, friends, or even physicians. An early sign of manic-depressive illness may be hypomania -- a state in which the person shows a high level of energy, excessive moodiness or irritability, and impulsive or reckless behavior. Hypomania may feel good to the person who experiences it. Thus, even when family and friends learn to recognize the mood swings, the individual often will deny that anything is wrong.

In its early stages, bipolar disorder may masquerade as a problem other than mental illness. For example, it may first appear as alcohol or drug abuse, or poor school or work performance.

If left untreated, bipolar disorder tends to worsen, and the person experiences episodes of full-fledged manic episodes and depressive episodes.

One of the usual differential diagnoses for bipolar disorder is that the symptoms (listed below) are not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Disorder and is not superimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional Disorder, or Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.

And as with nearly all mental disorder diagnoses, the symptoms of manic depression must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Symptoms also can not be the result of substance use or abuse (e.g., alcohol, drugs, medications) or caused by a general medical condition.

Answer 3

OK, so it's a mood disorder and a serious mental illness. It has a strong genetic component, but appears to be triggered environmentally. There are no diagnostic tests for it, just psychiatric evaluation. Most sufferers are not diagnosed until middle age, and it takes an average of around 8-10 years to get a correct diagnosis. Historically, figures suggested it affects about 0.8% of the population at some point, which makes it about half as common as schizophrenia. In recent years, bipolar disorder has become an 'in' diagnosis, and many more people are being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. As with ADHD, this fad may well pass with time, although for the moment many celebrities appear to be 'popularising' it.

It is characterised by episodes of severe clinical depression and mania or hypomania (for definitions of those, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_diagnostic_criteria_for_bipolar_disorder ). The extreme end of mania often turns into psychosis, complete with hallucinations and delusions. During manic phases, the person's judgement and perception of reality is severely compromised, leading to risky actions with potentially damaging consequences (financially, sexually and relationship-wise). Untreated, episodes generally worsen over time due to an effect known as kindling. Untreated Bipolar sufferers are at a very high risk of suicide: 20-25% attempt it, and 15% succeed.

The cycles in bipolar disorder are much longer than people generally believe. Anyone whose mood changes from minute to minute is very unlikely to be bipolar. Bipolar 1 is characterised by mood episodes lasting many months, while Bipolar 2 has episodes in the region of weeks to months. Rapid and ultra-rapid cycling bipolar disorder is rare, and cycles last days to weeks.

There are many drugs available to treat the symptoms of bipolar (there is no cure). These are either anti-convulsants or anti-psychotics (personally I take both), and the most well known of these is Lithium. These drugs are heavy duty psychiatric medications and are not to be taken lightly, and most if not all of them have a range of side effects including lethargy, photosensitivity, cognitive impairment (dumb as a box of rocks), weight gain, hormone problems, hair loss and blood problems. These side effects have to be weighed against the benefits of mood stabilisation. Most patients will go through a number of different drugs before finding one that works for them.

Answer 4

Bipolar disorder was pretty well described by both Giedie and tpbthigh. Many people suffer extreme mood changes, ups and downs, which are uncontrollable. In the manic stage reckless behavior is very common. Some people think, in this state to self medicate with street drugs which only makes the situation worse.
The disease can not be cured, but your doctor, after trial and error can prescribe the best combination of medications for you. Medication will be needed for the rest of ones life.

Answer 5

G-d damnit I just turned in a 12 page pager on bipolar disorder for my abnormal psych class today. What about it?

If you wanna read it ([e-mail])
It's not the greatest.

*Edit* Screw it, here I go on basics. Bipolar disorder was formally known as manic depressive disorder. It is regognized by it's highs and lows which are marked by euphoria and major depression. Psychotic symptoms may be present in the disorder, but is not scizofrenia (as an earlier post implied "one can't tell reality from fantasy"). That's all I'm telling you for now.

Answer 6

For people with bipolar disorder, life can be an emotional roller coaster. It can have intense highs and crippling lows. But treatments are available to help control these extreme mood swings. Although there is no cure, with proper treatment, people diagnosed with bipolar disorder can live normal lives. Hope this helps.

Answer 7

Bi-polar disorder, also known as manic depression, is when the synapses in your brain get "wired" open or shut, causing you to have prolonged episodes of "highs" and "lows". The synapses cause also open and shut to quickly and to often causing you to "cycle" going from High to low too often. There are medicaitons for treatment, different people respond to different meds.

Answer 8

Actually, it looks more like Attention Deficit Disorder...

Answer 9

Bipolar disorder from my understanding is when your mind can cause you to think that you are someone else. You really do believe that you are this person, it isn't like having another personality as you can be different things, for example- you think you a character in a movie, etc. I have a family member with this and all I really know is what I have seen, I don't know much about the technical definition. Also, it can cause severe paranoia.

Answer 10

I have it and I try to deal with it the best that i can. Believe me, I'm not going to pay $1,500 a month in medications just for it when all you have to do is count to 20. I don't know what your quetions was, hope this helps any though !

Answer 11

Yes it is a condition caused by cheating husbands or something traumatic like that.