Although bipolar disorder is a condition in which people have ups and downs out of proportion, or totally unrelated to the events of their life, there are ways of treating bipolar disorder. These mood swings affect thoughts, feelings, physical health and performance. Suffering from bipolar disorder is not ones fault or is as a result of a weak personality or being unstable. It’s a mental illness that has medical treatments available which can genuinely help most people. People can live with the disease many years without knowing it because of an incorrect diagnosis. Treating bipolar disorder at an early stage is an important key to controlling it’s symptoms.
Bipolar disorder usually begins in adolescence or early adulthood, although it can sometimes begin during childhood or as late as 40 or 50 years. When someone with over 50 years has a first manic episode, it is likely that the cause is a problem that mimics bipolar disorder as a neurological disease or the effects of drugs, alcohol or certain medications. Mania is diagnosed if ones elevated mood lasts at least a week and at the same time experience three or more additional symptoms. Depression is diagnosed if the discouragement or lack of interest or pleasure occur every day for at least two weeks and is accompanied by five or more other symptoms.
There is evidence that the more episodes of ups and downs that a person has, the more difficult it is to treat the episodes that follow later. Improper handling of how to treat the disease could be a complication. A person misdiagnosed with depression only in place of bipolar disorder may incorrectly receive antidepressants without anti-manic medication. These can cause manic episodes and have the general course of the disease worse.
Treatment for bipolar disorder is divided into two stages. First the acute treatment phase, aimed at ending this manic (manic depressive disorder is discussed elsewhere on this site), hypomanic, depressive, or mixed moods. Secondly, we have preventive treatment where medication is administered long term to prevent future episodes.
Treatments for bipolar disorder includes:
- Medication: Prescription for nearly all patients during acute phase and prevention.
- Education: Crucial in helping patients and families to learn how to better manage bipolar disorder and prevent complications.
- Psychotherapy: A great help for many patients and families in resolving problems and deal with stress, should not be used alone, but rather should be combined with medication (except for special situations such as pregnancy).
- Electroconvulsive therapy can be effective for both mania and depression when medications fail.
There isn’t any guideline for preventing or use to treat this disease. For the treatment of bipolar disorder there is currently available in the marketplace a new drug, based on controlled-release lithium, intended to stabilize and control the symptoms of the disease. The controlled-release lithium is the only mood stabilizer that has shown to decrease the rate of suicide in bipolar disorder patients. Lithium is a drug that has more than 30 years of clinical experience. According to placebo-controlled clinical studies in acute mania, this drug has a confirmed response of up to 70%. In addition to these therapies for treating bipolar disorder, many people also use complementary bipolar alternative treatments to aid their recovery.