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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Interesting Article--Bipolar Has Many Faces

From health.com: 
Although the symptoms of bipolar disorder can vary significantly from person to person, mental health professionals have identified four main subtypes of the illness that are sometimes referred to as bipolar spectrum disorders: bipolar I, bipolar II, bipolar not otherwise specified, and cyclothymia.

Factors that differentiate the types of bipolar include the duration and intensity of the mood swings. Knowing which type you have can help doctors choose the right course of treatment, according to Gabrielle Carlson, MD, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York.

The article goes on to describe the similarities and differences in the types of bipolar.

Click on the link below to read the entire article.

Bipolar Has Many Faces

1 comments:

perphila said...

That was a good article. It is always good to keep up with the newest ideas concerning bipolar. Whenever I read an article like this and of course all the great links to other articles on the sidebars. I feel a lot of regret and much affirmation. I regret that my husband never took his lithium to stabilize his moods. I have a lot of what if's about that. Did his antidepressant trigger his mania because he wasn't taking the lithium? I regret not knowing more back then as I do now. I regret not going to his pdoc with him. I regret not standing over him and making him take his meds. I feel good though knowing what his meds were really for and not the lies my husband was telling me. He can lie all he wants now and say he has no problem, his family can try and sweep the truth under the rug but I know he was given his meds for a reason and it's sad for him and for our family he never took them the way he should have. I also regret he never stayed with his pdoc long enough to get a clearer diagnoses. All I knew was he was depressed most of the time but then he could have bursts of activity (and not the good kind) at the same time. It was like having whiplash watching his moods change. I guess it's not my job to figure it out any more.