Comments on: Post a Question

By: stephanie

stephanie — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:18:27 +0000

hi my name is stephanie im 21 and i just got diognosed with bipolar. some people tell me its not a big deal and some peolpe act like i have a contagouis sickness…i hate it. im starting the med geodon tonight and im kinda scared. id like to hear acuaul people who use it to tell me what they thought of it. and i wanna know is this going to change me as a person? besides my manic and depressive moments i dont wanna loose my personality.
love, new bipolar blogger

By: Hope

Hope — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:30:37 +0000

My daughter was diagnosed bipolar at age 15, she is now 18. We initially sought out help when she was in 2nd grade as we were having multiple issues, mainly seemingly OCD related. She was first diagnosed with this at that time. She was not medicated and she saw a therapist and seemed to improve somewhat. When she went through puberty that changed and her OCD symptoms returned with a vengeance we then went to a psychiatrist who put her on zoloft. She does have an uncle who was diagnosed manic-depressive (back when that was the term used). Her Dr. Did warn us to be watchful of any manic type symptoms. About 3 weeks in to treatment things got weird. She behaved impulsively, had seizure type episodes, which may or may not have been real, and over all behaved in ways not at all typical. We of course went back and she was dosed down on the zoloft and we added lamictal and ability eventually cutting out the zoloft completely. After a few months she improved dramatically. She wanted to take the least amount of medication as possible and eventually got down to 50 mg of lamictal and no ability. She did great for a year. On a trip a year ago she forgot to take her lamictal for a few days and returned with panic attacks and raging OCD. Her OCD mainly shows as hypochondria. Got her back on meds but had to go up dramatically, she now takes 400 mg of lamictal and 7 1/2 of ability, but is once again doing beautifully. Now for the question, she does not like to thinks that she is truly bipolar, but my thinking is if the bipolar meds make her better then it must be. Would that be the case? And how common is it for bipolar to present with OCD symptoms as well?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 04:22:53 +0000

In one of your articles you suggest keeping a mood diary. I have been keeping one for a month and a half now. It is so helpful that I wish I had been keeping one way sooner than this. I went to a psychiatrist three weeks ago due to some mood swings (I am already being treated for clinical depression). The pdoc asked me certain questions that I wasn’t able to answer with complete certainty because I just couldn’t remember. That wouldn’t have happened if I had had a mood chart. It was very frustrating and I am concerned about the affect insuffcient info may have had on the diagnosis (bipolar NOS). Up until this point my diagnosis has always been depression (of the atypical type). I had my first depressive episode at age 16 and they have recurred throughout my life (I’m 59). I never paid much attention to my “up times” because I figured I was only recovering from my depression. If I had a mood chart I could have given the pdoc better info in terms of duration of episodes and exact symptomology. Now I feel like I’m neither here nor there (unipolar vs. bipolar). My memory is not the best due to my recurrent depression, so trying to remember details from years ago is not possible. With a couple of exceptions, I am pretty much limited to memories from the past five or so years. Because I was always diagnosed with unipolar depression, I never even thought to pay particular attention to my occasional good moods. That being said, I do remember a few times in the past couple of years when I felt so happy that (at least to me) it seemed unusual, almost “too happy”. I felt more energetic and was able to do more of the things I couldn’t do when I was depressed, but I never felt like I didn’t need any sleep or that I took on excessive amounts of projects. It is not unusual for me to start things that I don’t finish but unipolar depression could account for that. I can’t remember any episodes of overspending, reckless or promiscuous behavior, but do remember acting more flirty and thinking I was more attractive and confident than usual. I talked more and definitely faster but not so much that people remarked on it. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the exact duration of these episodes, but it seems as though they only lasted a day or so at most. I do remember a period of above normal anger and irritability that lasted what seemed like months a few years ago. I assumed it was part of perimenopause, but who knows. I have taken several types of antidepressants over the years. The tricyclics never worked and the SSRIs worked at first but didn’t seem to do the full job in the long run. I’ve been taking 400mg of buproprion for the past couple of years along with weekly psychotherapy. Some of those “really happy” times definitely occurred during this period but may have happened earlier as well. One explanation could have been that since I was no longer feeling depressed and suicidal, the contrast made the happy times seem extreme. In the past I’ve also suffered from SAD, so when I started feeling bad again this fall it didn’t surprise me. The unusual thing was the variable nature of my moods. There have been very stressful events happening in my life these past few months and my sleep has been very irregular. I had a day here and there with an up mood, but there were also times of agitation, crying and incessant disturbing thoughts. That is when my therapist suggested I be screened for possible bipolar. I also want to mention a couple things with regard to family. I found out recently that my son (33) was diagnosed with bipolar II and OCD within the past year and a half. He had behavioral problems as a child but they said it was ADD. Ritalin made things worse so it might have been unrecognized bipolar instead. My mother died when I was 4 1/2. I don’t remember much about her but I’ve heard her described as “moody”. The pdoc has now put me on Lamictal in addition to my buproprion. If that (or some other mood stabilizer) works would it tip the balance in favor of bipolar instead of unipolar or do I need to wait for more symptoms to appear?

By: melissa

melissa — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:07:51 +0000

Hi Everyone,
I am looking for some unbiased advice. I broke up with my boyfriend a month ago after traveling the world and just realizing that there is so much more to life that I want to accomplish and I just needed to be single and live life for my self. After we broke up he lost his job and things started in a downward spiral and ended up sending him to a manic episode. I got a call on Tuesday night from a bar in our town asking me to come and pick him up because he thought he was Christ and was putting himself in danger. Up until Tuesday no one could get him to the hospital or talk him into taking meds until I asked him. He keeps saying that he’ll do anything I want him to or ask him to. I am glad that I can be there to help him get the help he needs and though I’ve made it clear that I am just his friend I just don’t want him to get the wrong idea or impression of my compassion towards him. He is very very angry with his family and everyone else in his life and since he is a stubborn person to begin with he will do exactly the opposite of what they want him to do, which is where I come in handy. If his doctors or parents need him to do something and they ask me to ask him he does it with no problems. But if they ask him he will purposefully not do it and do the opposite. What should I do. I know my purpose in life is to help people because I am very compassionate but is what I am doing wrong?

By: Candida Fink MD

Candida Fink MD — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:52:41 +0000

Hi Patrick – this very situation is one of the most difficult ones in the medical treatment of bipolar disorder. Depression is actually the more frequent mood cycle and causes terrible problems in people’s lives – but it is unclear how best to use the antidepressants in treatment of bipolar depression. This is something you must discuss in detail with your doctor – ask lots of questoins – seek a seond opinion if you feel unclear on what your doctor is suggesting and why.
Best of luck to you!