Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar Disorder – General Information
This disease has been known as Bipolar Affective Disorder, and the actual name refers to the cycling between high and low episodes, from euphoria to depressions and from recklessness to listlessness. This term is designed to be neutral, to avoid the confusion in the non mental health community that comes from “manic” and “depression”. The types of extreme episodes are associated with the Bipolar Disorder, which can be considered a severe disabling mental illness. The disease can be also called manic depression or manic depressive illness, manic behavior is one extreme of this disorder and depression is the other. Bipolar Disorder, in most of the cases, occurs in adolescence and early adulthood and can even persist throughout the whole life. The causes of this type of mental disease are elusive, and doctors say that there is no cure for it. The flares of the mental disease can continue for weeks or even months, leading to the appearance of great disturbances in the lives of the affected patients, their friends or their families. If the mental disease is left untreated, it gets, in most of the cases, worse. But doctors can easily manage the mental disease with medication treatments and several other therapies. Generally, the symptoms appear in childhood and the diagnosis is made on the patient’s experiences and behavior. The episodes of distress and disruption can highly increase the risk of suicide. Usually, the disorder is found in patients involved in arts, as cases with creative geniuses affected have been commonly encountered.
Bipolar Disorder – Symptoms
Doctors and scientists don't know for sure what leads to the appearance of Bipolar Disorder, but they suspect that a variety of biologic, environmental and genetic factors can be involved in provoking and triggering the specific episodes of this illness. The signs and symptoms of the Bipolar Disorder usually alternate with mania, emotional highs, and depression, emotional lows. The signs and symptoms associated with the disease can vary on the intensity of the symptoms and the disorder can range from mild to severe, which can alternate with episodes of normal behavior. Generally, the signs and symptoms are classified depending on the phases of the Bipolar Disorder, manic and depressive. For patients in the manic phase, the symptoms can appear as feelings of euphoria or extreme optimism and inflated self esteem, rapid speech, racing thoughts, agitation or increased physical activity, poor judgment, recklessness and taking chances not normally taken, difficulty sleeping, tendency to be easily distracted, inability to concentrate and aggressive behavior. For patients in the depressive phase, the symptoms can appear as persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt and hopelessness, disturbances in sleep and appetite, fatigue and loss of interest in daily activities, problems concentrating, irritability, chronic pain without knowing the cause, recurring thoughts of suicide. Patients suffering of Bipolar Disorder usually don't know how impaired they are when experiencing a mood episode and how much the disorder is changing their lives and the lives of others. Friends, family or even physicians play an important role in recognizing possible signs of the disease and in recommending the patient to seek medical attention.
Patients who are suffering from this sort of medical condition ought to be given professional medical attention as soon as possible. This type of disorder generally cannot be cured, but it can be treated. This is why most doctors usually prescribe medication as main option to treat the disease, even if therapies like psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy, which is used occasionally, can also prove effective in the case of patients suffering from this disorder. For most patients suffering from Bipolar Disorder the medication treatment is meant to regulate their moods. Lithium, prescribed by the doctors as Eskalith and Lithobid, has been very used as a mood stabilizer and is usually the main type of treatment for the manic episodes. Doctors can also prescribe anti seizure medications, which can include valproic acid, divalproex and lamotrigine and are also administered such as mood regulators.
Topiramate is another type of anti seizure drug which can also be used to stabilize any mood. In some cases, doctors can also prescribe antidepressant drugs to treat the depression that is correlated with the Bipolar Disorder. This type of medication can include Paroxetine, Fluoxetine, Sertraline and bupropion or other drugs associated with these. In other cases, doctors can also use antipsychotic drugs which can include risperidone or olanzapine.
The American Diabetes Association recommends all doctors to monitor patients who take medications because they might develop diabetes, obesity or high blood pressure. For patients who take the medication treatment, they have to wait several weeks for the mediation to be fully effective. Another way to treat Bipolar Disorder is Psychotherapy, which is used in combination with the medication treatment. The therapist can help the patient to detect the patterns which can provoke to episodes of the disease and try to identify the main causes for the episodes. Psychotherapy is considered a way to provide strategies for controlling stress and coping with uncertainties. Due to this fact, along with main education of the nature of the disease, it can help the patient understand why he might have to continue taking medicines all his or her life. The electroconvulsive therapy or ECT is used by doctors in cases when patients suffering from Bipolar Disorder have episodes of major depression associated with suicidal tendencies or in cases when the medication treatment has proved ineffective. In this type of treatment, electrodes are taped to the patient’s head. After this, while the patient is anesthetized and he receives a muscle relaxant; then, a small amount of electrical current is passed through the brain for less than a second. This type of current causes a brain seizure, and because of the muscle relaxant, the patient’s body remains calm.
