What Is A Manic Depressive State

Can Bipolar Turn Into Depression

While one disorder cannot evolve into or become another, its possible that someone diagnosed with depression experiences the symptoms of bipolar disorder later in life1, or that someone with bipolar is misdiagnosed initially with major depressive disorder, because of the similarity of the disorders symptoms.

What Is The Treatment For Mania Hypomania And Depression

You can check what treatment and care is recommended for bipolar disorders on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence website.

NICE produce guidelines for how health professionals should treat certain conditions. You can download these from their website at:

The NHS doesnt have to follow these recommendations. But they should have a good reason for not following them.

What medications are recommended?

Mood stabilisers are usually used to manage mania, hypomania and depressive symptoms.

The mood stabilisers we talk about in this factsheet are:

• Lithium
• Certain benzodiazepine medication

Mania and hypomaniaYou should be offered a mood stabiliser to help manage your mania or hypomania. Your doctor may refer to your medication as antimanic medication.

If you are taking antidepressants your doctor may advise you to withdraw from taking them.

You will usually be offered an antipsychotic first. The common antipsychotics used for the treatment of bipolar disorder are:

• Haloperidol
• Quetiapine
• Risperidone

If the first antipsychotic you are given doesnt work, then you should be offered a different antipsychotic medication from the list above.

If a different antipsychotic doesnt work, then you may be offered lithium to take alongside it. If the lithium doesnt work you may be offered sodium valproate to take with an antipsychotic. Sodium valproate is an anticonvulsive medication.

Sodium Valproate shouldnt be given to girls or young women who might want to get pregnant.

Understanding Depression: Does Depression Ever Go Away

Depression is a little more than just feeling low or blue, it is a serious mental health condition that can have severe long-lasting effects on a persons health and wellness.

Depression is often accompanied by sadness and while sadness is a common emotion, depression can enhance the feelings of sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness, and other emotions.

While depression can be treated, some questions are left unanswered how long does depression last, and does depression ever go away? To understand the answers to these questions, we need to understand a little about depressive episodes and risk factors that can contribute to recurring depression.

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Symptoms Of Depression Vs Symptoms Of Bipolar Disorder

Depression and bipolar disorder are complex conditions that can share symptoms. It may take some time to receive the proper diagnosis.

presence or absence of three episodes to diagnose bipolar disorder from depression. These are:

• Manic episode:Mania is a period lasting at least 7 days of high energy combined with several, specific behavior changes. The changes cause dysfunction at work or in a persons social life.
• Hypomanic episode:Hypomania is similar to mania, but with a shorter period of less severe changes. The changes do not cause trouble with daily living and last at least 4 days.
• Major depressive episode: At least 2 weeks of several symptoms of depression. The criteria for a major depressive episode mirrors that for a diagnosis of MDD.

Manic episodes are characterized by irritability or increased energy levels on most days, for the majority of each day. People must also experience at least three of these behavior changes to be considered for a bipolar disorder diagnosis:

• boundless energy and less need for sleep
• racing thoughts or switching topics during conversation
• speaking more or speaking rapidly
• increased activity
• becoming easily distracted

Manic Depressive Symptoms And Living As A Manic Depressive

Manic depressive disorder, now known as bipolar disorder, is a mental illness characterized by cycling high and low moods. A cycling mood disorder has been written about as a clear mental illness since early Chinese authors and was described by the encyclopedist Gao Lian in the late 16th century. German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin developed the term “manic depressive psychosis” in the early 20th century.1 This term made the most sense at the time as the illness has episodes of mania and episodes of depression.

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Treatment For Bipolar Disorder

If you spot the symptoms of bipolar disorder in yourself or someone else, dont wait to get help. Ignoring the problem wont make it go away in fact, it will almost certainly get worse. Living with untreated bipolar disorder can lead to problems in everything from your career to your relationships to your health. But bipolar disorder is highly treatable, so diagnosing the problem and starting treatment as early as possible can help prevent these complications.

If youre reluctant to seek treatment because you like the way you feel when youre manic, remember that the energy and euphoria come with a price. Mania and hypomania often turn destructive, hurting you and the people around you.

How Is Bipolar Affective Disorder Characterized

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Bipolar disorder is characterized by periods of deep, prolonged, and profound depression that alternate with periods of an excessively elevated or irritable mood known as mania. This pattern of alternating severe depression and periods of mania is characteristic of bipolar disorder type I , although in rarer cases, persons may only experience episodes of mania. In practice, symptoms of mania and depression can also occur together in what is termed a mixed state as the illness evolves. By contrast, bipolar disorder type II is diagnosed when episodes of severe depression are punctuated with periods of hypomania, a less severe form of mania that does not include psychosis or lead to gross impairment in functioning. A diagnosis of cyclothymic disorder is given to individuals with periods of both hypomanic and depressive symptoms without meeting the full criteria for mania, hypomania or major depression.

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The Keys To Bipolar Disorder Self

Get educated. Learn as much as you can about bipolar disorder. The more you know, the better youll be at assisting your own recovery.

Get moving. Exercise has a beneficial impact on mood and may reduce the number of bipolar episodes you experience. Aerobic exercise that activates arm and leg movement such as running, walking, swimming, dancing, climbing or drumming may be especially beneficial to your brain and nervous system.

Keep stress in check. Avoid high-stress situations, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and try relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga, or deep breathing.

Seek support. Its important to have people you can turn to for help and encouragement. Try joining a support group or talking to a trusted friend. Reaching out is not a sign of weakness and it wont mean youre a burden to others. In fact, most friends will be flattered that you trust them enough to confide in them, and it will only strengthen your relationship.

Stay closely connected to friends and family. Nothing is as calming to the nervous system as face-to-face contact with caring supportive people who can just listen to you talk about what youre experiencing.

Make healthy choices. Healthy sleeping and eating habits can help stabilize your moods. Keeping a regular sleep schedule is particularly important.

Monitor your moods. Keep track of your symptoms and watch for signs that your moods are swinging out of control so you can stop the problem before it starts.

Can I Take Medicine For Bipolar Disorder While Breastfeeding

Yes. Certain medicines to treat bipolar disorder are safe to take while breastfeeding.7 Talk to your doctor about what medicines you can take after giving birth.

Learn more about medicines and breastfeeding in our Breastfeeding section. You can also enter your medicine into the LactMed® database to find out whether your medicine passes through your breastmilk and, if so, any possible side effects for your nursing baby.

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It Took Over A Month For Me To Return To My Stable Self

This is a month AFTER the two week depressive episode. As my dear friend Jay Carter, the author of always says, it takes a very long time for our brains to get back on track chemically when we have an episode. This is especially true for longer episodes. The longer the episode- the longer the recovery time. This makes sense when we read it, but when were going through it, we often expect life to magically get back to normal once the mood swing ends.

If it took me 30 days to recover from two weeks of depression, what does it take to recover from a massive manic and psychotic episode? It can take a year for some people. No one wants to hear this, but I believe we need to be honest with ourselves in order to survive bipolar disorder.

If we know that recovery takes time, we can go easier on ourselves.

I want to be nice to myself when I get sick. I want to and need to give myself time to recover.

Patience doesnt come naturally for me. I tend to put myself down for not being able to work much, but wow, this is a pretty darn serious illness. I need to respect what my body experiences when I get sick and give it time to heal.

We have to be ready for recovery time after an episode. We dont just bounce back.

We can come back. We can flourish- we can get better and back to our stable selves, but its a process and it always takes longer than we

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What Are The Long

Bipolar disorder is a life-long and often recurring illness. You may need long term support to help manage your condition.

What medication options are there?

Your doctor will look at what medication worked for you during episodes of mania or depression. They should ask you whether you want to continue this treatment or if you want to change to lithium.

Lithium usually works better than other types of medication for long-term treatment. Your doctor should give you information about how to take lithium safely. If lithium doesn’t work well enough or causes you problems, you may be offered:

• Valproate,
• Olanzapine, or
• Quetiapine.

Your doctor should monitor your health. Physical health checks should be done at least once a year. These checks will include:

• measuring your weight,
• checking your liver and heart, and
• checking your pulse and blood pressure.

What psychological treatments are recommended?

You should be offered a psychological therapy that is specially designed for bipolar disorder. You could have individual or group therapy.

The aim of your therapy is to stop you from becoming unwell again. This is known as relapse. Your therapy should help you to:

If you live with your family or are in close contact with them, you should also be offered family intervention.

Family intervention is where you and your family work with mental health professionals to help to manage relationships. This should be offered to people who you live with or who you are in close contact with.

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Patterns Of Depression And Mania

If you have bipolar disorder, you may have episodes of depression more regularly than episodes of mania, or vice versa.

Between episodes of depression and mania, you may sometimes have periods where you have a “normal” mood.

The patterns are not always the same and some people may experience:

• rapid cycling where a person with bipolar disorder repeatedly swings from a high to a low phase quickly without having a “normal” period in between
• mixed state where a person with bipolar disorder experiences symptoms of depression and mania together for example, overactivity with a depressed mood

If your mood swings last a long time but are not severe enough to be classed as bipolar disorder, you may be diagnosed with a mild form of bipolar disorder called cyclothymia.

With Treatment How Long Does It Take To Overcome Depression

When I started my treatment, I started with therapy alone, so things were slow going.

However, once I got on antidepressants, I started to notice things moving in the right direction. The antidepressants brought me to a place that allowed me to focus better on my therapy treatment, so the two forms of treatment worked well together.

While I still experience on and off symptoms of depression, I feel that after one year of treatment, my life is finally at a point where I am feeling more like a normal person. The feelings of sadness and hopelessness are significantly reduced, I am performing well at work again and I am able to enjoy my time with my friends.

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Symptoms Of Bipolar I Disorder

To meet the criteria of bipolar I disorder, a person must experience:

• one or more manic episodes lasting 7 days or more each, or
• shorter manic periods but with severe symptoms that require hospitalization

Many people with bipolar I disorder also experience depressive episodes or mixed episodes of manic and depressive symptoms.

What Are The Symptoms Of Bipolar Ii Disorder

During a hypomanic episode, elevated mood can manifest itself as either euphoria or as irritability.

Symptoms during hypomanic episodes include:

• Flying suddenly from one idea to the next
• Having exaggerated self confidence
• Rapid, “pressured” and loud speech
• Increased energy, with hyperactivity and a decreased need for sleep

People experiencing hypomanic episodes are often quite pleasant to be around. They can often seem like the “life of the party” — making jokes, taking an intense interest in other people and activities, and infecting others with their positive mood.

What’s so bad about that, you might ask? Hypomania can also lead to erratic and unhealthy behavior. Hypomanic episodes can sometimes progress onward to full manias that affect a person’s ability to function . In mania, people might spend money they don’t have, seek out sex with people they normally wouldn’t, and engage in other impulsive or risky behaviors with the potential for dangerous consequences.

The vast majority of people with bipolar II disorder experience more time with depressive than hypomanic symptoms. Depressions can occur soon after hypomania subsides, or much later. Some people cycle back and forth between hypomania and depression, while others have long periods of normal mood in between episodes.

Untreated, an episode of hypomania can last anywhere from a few days to several months. Most commonly, symptoms continue for a few weeks to a few months.

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What Can I Do To Manage My Symptoms

You can learn to manage your symptoms by looking after yourself. Selfcare is how you take care of your diet, sleep, exercise, daily routine, relationships and how you are feeling.

What lifestyle changes can I make?

Making small lifestyle changes can improve your wellbeing and can help your recovery.

Routine helps many people with their mental wellbeing. It will help to give a structure to your day and may give you a sense of purpose. This could be a simple routine such as eating at the same time each day, going to bed at the same time each day and buying food once per week.

Your healthcare professionals should offer you a combined healthy eating, exercise and sleep programme.

You can find more information about wellbeing any physical health at:www.rethink.org/advice-and-information/living-with-mental-illness/wellbeing-physical-health/.

What are support groups?

You could join a support group. A support group is where people come together to share information, experiences and give each other support.

You might be able to find a local group by searching online. The charity Bipolar UK have an online support group. They also have face to face support groups in some areas of the country. Their contact details are in the Useful contacts at the bottom of this page.

What are recovery colleges?

Unfortunately, recovery colleges arent available in all areas. To see if there is a recovery college in your area you can use a search engine such as Google.

Living With Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, can adversely affect a persons ability to perform daily tasks. For people like Elizabeth Horner, a psychiatric nurse who works with patients dealing with conditions like schizophrenia, manic depression, and clinical depression, living with manic depression herself has come with its setbacks and hardship. She described the disorder as one that has caused her periods of isolation and grief.

I denied my bipolar disorder for well over a decade andonly recently came to accept its existence. I was finally able to look back at all my struggles with a clarity and wisdom that had been lacking in me for a long time, she stated in an article for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

In his interview with David Letterman, rapper Kanye West also opened up about his life after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and described that the condition had led him to feel hyper-paranoid about everything and everyone. You pretty much dont trust anyone, he said. He also mentioned that he chose to speak up about his diagnosis because of the discrimination faced by people who are affected by bipolar disorder.

Getting therapy and opting for a suitable treatment plan can help you manage the symptoms and live a happy and productive life.

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Coping With Bipolar Disorder

Living with bipolar disorder can be challenging, but there are ways to help make it easier for yourself, a friend, or a loved one.

• Get treatment and stick with itrecovery takes time and its not easy. But treatment is the best way to start feeling better.
• Keep medical and therapy appointments and talk with the provider about treatment options.
• Take all medicines as directed.
• Structure activities: keep a routine for eating and sleeping, and make sure to get enough sleep and exercise.
• Learn to recognize your mood swings and warning signs, such as decreased sleep.
• Ask for help when trying to stick with your treatment.
• Be patient improvement takes time. Social support helps.
• Avoid misuse of alcohol and drugs.

Remember: Bipolar disorder is a lifelong illness, but long-term, ongoing treatment can help control symptoms and enable you to live a healthy life.