Dealing With Manic Depression

Although family and friends are important when it comes to dealing with manic depressive disorder, there are certain steps you can take to help yourself if you want to get better. Granted, being in a depressed state of mind may make it impossible to control your behaviour but your doctor or therapist can help you improve your coping skills.

1. You must keep to your treatments and never miss a therapy session, no matter how you don’t feel like going.


2. Never skip your medication even if you feel that you are well enough and don’t see the need to take your medication as directed. Continuing and finishing the course of medication is important as stopping halfway could result in depression symptoms returning.


3. You may experience manic depressive disorder but learning more about it is a positive step towards self-empowerment that can motivate you to fight the illness by sticking with your treatment.


4. Be constant close communication with your doctor and therapist and contact them should you feel manic depression symptoms return. Note what could have triggered the return and work with your doctor and therapist on it.


5. Get yourself active, whether it be some physical activity such as exercise or a hobby that is enjoyed in a group environment such as sporting activities.


6. Stay away from drugs and alcohol, or worse, illicit drugs that can result in worsening manic depressive disorder.

Being inflicted with manic depressive disorder is not the end of the world. If you are determined enough, with proper treatment and support from family and friends, you can defeat the illness and lead a normal, fulfilling life.

Manic Depression Behaviour

Moods change from one extreme of happiness to the other extreme of despair in manic depressive disorder. This shift of mood can last for a certain period and are called episodes. Episodes of happiness and sadness alternate with each lasting for several days or sometimes weeks and months.

Those suffering from manic depression have been observed to have varying patterns of behaviour. For example, some would have a predictable pattern of behaviour while others have random emotional outbursts. Only a small minority of patients do not suffer recurring episodes of manic depressive disorder.

Studies revealed that by using lithium, the recurrence of depression is greatly reduced thus reducing the need for treatment.

1. Bipolar 1 – Patients have one or more manic episodes. It is not necessary for a person to be suffering from depression in order to have bipolar 1 disorder.


2. Bipolar II - The patient will suffer episodes that involves severe depression and likewise hypomania. It is said that the presence of hypomania serves to present the bipolar situation in contrast with a unipolar depression.


3. Cyclothymia – A person is said to be suffering from manic depressive disorder if he or she experiences more than one episodes of hypomania coupled with many episodes of depression.


4. Bipolar Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified) – The patient in this case, should show signs of bipolar disorder. However, patients in this category does not fall into the first 3 types of bipolar disorder.

In all cases of manic or bipolar depression, similar symptoms can be observed, such as deep feelings of sadness without cause, high irritability or bad temperedness or crying for no apparent reason.

Here is where family and friends come in to play important supportive roles in helping the patient recognize that he or she needs help and to persuade the patient to accept treatment. Failure to treat manic depressive disorder could lead to dire consequences that will affect not only the patient but to family and friends.

Manic Depression Is Treatable

It is important to know that manic depressive disorder is not a death sentence in the majority of the cases. It is a manageable disorder, as long as you seek the medical assistance of your doctor early. Many patients suffer longer than they should because they put off seeking medical help. If you suspect that you are suffering from manic depression, you must see your doctor to discuss your problems with him so that you can be treated.

Nobody should feel helpless and hopeless. You may feel rejected or that nobody wants to be around you for some reason. Did you ever feel as you are not around desired or are not rejected? The feeling may pass after one moment but when it persists, could it be a sign of depression? The first step to successful manic depression treatment is to acknowledge it. There are various manic depressive disorder that make it difficult for you to diagnose yourself.

A great number of woman experience what they think is depression after childbirth but for the majority that it passes in one month or two because is it what is known as baby blues instead of the depression. When it does not, it would be a good idea to seek medical attention.

Not paying attention to prolonged baby blues could lead to thoughts of suicide. Such cases are fairly common and you should be assured that you are not the only one experiencing this.

Once you consult your doctor about your feelings, you will be treated with a drug that will help you deal with the depression a little easier. With manic depressive disorder, however, there is no fast solution to this problem but good medical help will ensure that you are able to lead a normal life.

It is important to not wait too long before seeking medical help. Keeping your feelings to yourself would only worsen the condition and possibly cause relationship strains with family and friends. Be open about it and don’t be afraid to tell your family and friends how you feel. They are often the first ones to help.

Know that manic depressive disorder when treated early is not a serious disease. Sometimes the best treatment for depression is to open up you feelings and lean on family and friends for comfort and a listening ear.

Manic Or Bipolar Depression

Bipolar disorder is another name for manic depressive disorder – a mental illness that typically alternates between episodes of mania and depression. The patient experiences elation and euphoric highs followed by deep melancholy and sadness. All too often this emotional disorder is overlooked not only by the patient, family and friends, but also by some mental health professionals still trying to fully understand what is manic depression.

Manic depressive disorder affects millions of adult Americans, with an alarmingly high suicide rate when depression hits. It is a type of affective disorder that is also called mood disorder and is fast becoming a serious medical condition and important health concern.

Often beginning in late adolescence as depression, manic depressive disorder develops as a manic episode in men and a depressive episode in women. 20 to 30 percent of adult bipolar disorder patients report having their first episode before the age of 20. When symptoms appear before the age of 12, they are often misunderstood and confused with attention-deficit disorder – a syndrome that is usually characterized by serious and persistent difficulties in attentiveness and hyperactivity. It has been found that the trend is similar across nationalities, races, age and ethnic and social groups.

Having manic depression makes it a challenge in leading a normal life with a regular schedule. This is because when these episodes occur, it very often leads to family conflict or financial problems with the patient behaving erratically and irresponsibly without reason. During the manic phase, the patient often becomes impulsive and aggressive, sometimes leading to high-risk behavior such as repeated intoxication.

This change in mood or “mood swing” can last for hours, days, weeks or even months. Every time manic depressive disorder symptoms are experienced at one pole for at least one week, it is called an episode. Experiencing 4 or more episodes or mania and depression in a year is called rapid-cycling bipolar disorder.

Successful Manic Depression Treatment

Just how successful are treatments for manic depressive disorder? How well treatments work depends on the type of depression, its severity, how long is has continued and the types of treatment given.

Anti-depressant and mood-stablilizing drugs developed over the last 25 years have changed the treatment of manic and clinical depression, especially for those with more serious or recurring forms of depression.

Biological treatments are effective and the majority of the people with biological depression obtain significant relief of anti-depressant drugs if the depression is mild or serious, recent or long-term. Left untreated, manic depressive disorder can become more serious or continue indefinitely.

Treatment and understanding manic depression are important to prevent recurrent episodes of depression. More than half of those who experience depression will have at least another episode in their lives. The chances of a third episode occurring are even greater.

Studies have shown that it can take 6 to 8 weeks to get results from treatment. A third of those who did not get better after a first treatment showed reduced signs of depression with a second treatment.

Although most cases of manic depressive disorder can be successfully treated as outpatients, those with severe episodes of depression and suicidal thoughts require brief hospitalization for detailed evaluation and treatment.

Combined with medication, psychotherapy is also important to treat manic depressive disorder sufferers with deep psychological problems.

Understanding Manic Depression

More than half of manic depressive disorder occurs twice as frequently in women as in men, for reasons that are not fully understood while more than half of those who experience a single episode of depression will continue to have episodes that occur as frequently in women as in men. This too, is equally somewhat of a mystery.

Major depression affects about five to eight percent of the United States’ adult population in any 12-month period, which means that, based on the last census, approximately 15 million Americans will have an episode of manic depressive disorder will continue to have episodes that occur as frequently in women as in men. Scientific research has greatly expanded our understanding and firmly established that mental illnesses like major depression are biologically based brain diseases. Like diabetes and heart disease, major depression are biologically based brain diseases. Some even say this is one of the reasons why migraine headache treatment remedies work on some people and not on others.

Almost each one obtains inserted sometimes in their lives, and a short attack of blue the isn't necessarily something to worry about. But if the symptoms of the depression persist then it could be clinical depression, if a serious or soft form of manic depression. All the persistent manic depressive disorder symptoms need prompt medical research by a medical professional.

In certain cases, the limit manic depressive disorder will refer to the full clinical depression. Other uses of the limit can refer to the beam depressive disorders whose clinical depression is the most serious type. As mentioned above, the limit depression can simply refer to depressive symptoms like sadness or to the bottom the modes.

The diagnosis and manic depression treatment is not always easy and an unrelated cause is always possible. Manic depressive disorder symptoms could be caused by an emotive inversion (for example sorrow, divorce, loss of work, etc), by drug-addiction, or several other of the causes. To feel inserted some day after an important crisis of the life does not justify a diagnosis of depression, and makes the catch of the antidepressant of it can be an inadequate treatment in this case (for example they can avoid the healthy order facing the sorrow or with the loss).

However, with-top-diagnosis of manic depression and with-top-regulation of the antidepressant in such situations is known to occur. Another possible with-top-diagnosis of depression is caused by the cycle of the emotive symptoms which result from the premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

The manic depressive disorder symptoms can also indicate a certain type of fundamental physical medical disorder. Various related depression-like physical symptoms (for example tiredness, lethargy, weakness) could be symptoms of a fundamental condition such as the chronic syndrome of tiredness, or several other conditions such as diabetes, fibromyalgia, Parkinson's disease and possible fundamental diagnosis of alternative causes of manic depressive disorder.

Manic Depression Treatment

There is some confusion about manic depressive disorder and major depression because the treatment for these two illnesses are very similar even though they are in fact, very distinct from one another.

Major depression is officially called major depressive disorder. The treatment of these two disorders is significantly distinct. The difference does not lie on clinical presentation alone. The treatment of these two disorders is enormous.

Major depression is a primary psychiatric disorder characterized by the presence of either a depressed mood or lack of interest to do usual activities occurring on a daily basis for at least two weeks.

Other patients develop psychosis—hearing voices (hallucinations) or having false beliefs (delusions) that people are out to get them. Moreover, about 15% of depressed patients become suicidal and occasionally, homicidal. They become socially withdrawn and can’t go to work.

If manic depressive disorder is left untreated, patients get worse. Tearfulness or crying episodes and irritability are not uncommon. In addition, patients afflicted with this disorder also suffer from feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. Just like other disorders, this illness has associated features such as impairment in energy, appetite, sleep, concentration, and desire to have sex.

The difference does not lie on clinical presentation alone. The treatment of these two disorders is enormous. The difference in understanding manic depression does not lie on clinical presentation alone. Because the difference between these two disorders is enormous. You know why?

Each time I encounter a chorus of questions like these, I am enthused to provide answers. “Is there any difference?” “Are they one and the same?” “Is the treatment the same?” And so on. Countless number of patients and their family members have asked me about manic depressive disorder and major depression.

The maniaco-depression is a primary education type of psychiatric disorder characterized by the presence of the principal depression (as described above) and the episodes of the mania which last during at least a week. When the mania is present, the patients show the opposite of signs of the clinical depression. During the episode, the patients show the euphorism significant or extreme irritability. Moreover, the patients become talkative and strong.

Moreover, this type of patients does not need much sleep. The night, they are very occupied phone calls of manufacture, cleaning the house, and launching new projects. In spite of the apparent lack of sleep, they are always very energetic in morning - loan to establish new efforts of businesses. Since they believe that they have special powers, they comprise in not very reasonable businesses of businesses and not very realistic personal projects.

Recently, new antipsychotics, for example risperidone, olanzapine, and quetiapine, have been shown to be effective for acute mania. While major depression needs antidepressant, manic-depression requires a mood stabilizer such as lithium and valproic acid. In fact the treatment of these disorders is completely different. This manic depressive disorder episode has treatment implications.

I know a manic patient who thinks that he is the presence of mania. Like depressed patients, manic patients develop delusions (false beliefs). One–night stands can happen resulting in marital conflict. They also become hypersexual — wanting to have sex several times a day.

In general, giving an antidepressant to manic–depressed patients can accomplish their action worse because this medication can accelerate a about-face to berserk episode. Although there are some exceptions to the aphorism (extreme depression, abridgement of acknowledgment to affection stabilizers, amid others), it is bigger to abstain antidepressants amid bipolar patients.

When because the use of antidepressant in a depressed bipolar patient, clinicians should amalgamate the medication with a affection balance and should use an antidepressant (e.g. bupropion) that has a low addiction to account a about-face to mania for effective manic depressive disorder treatment.