Treating Manic Depressive Disorder: A Joint Venture

The collection of related illnesses known as manic depressive disorder (or manic depression or bipolar disorder) is characterized predominantly by swings between highly elevated moods (known as mania) and severely depressed moods. But because the permutations of the disorder can vary (rapid cycling between those extremes versus slower cycling, for example), it's often difficult to find the best treatments. In fact, finding a therapist who knows a great deal about this disorder is probably the first step in finding effective treatment. Treating the illness will most likely involve considerable teamwork.

Most people with manic depressive disorder don't exist in a constant "back and forth" cycle of mood swings, as many function quite well in the periods between manic and depressive episodes. What that means is that they are capable of taking an active role in their own manic depression treatment, working with their doctors to devise and monitor them. Among other behavior issues, their greatest temptation may be to go off their medications if the symptoms appear to vanish. Therefore, the treatments may not be restricted just to those drug products, but may also involve psychotherapy so they can learn to recognize behaviors that might undermine their success.

When it comes to the medications prescribed for manic depressives, there are a great many currently available. However, lithium has been used for many years in various forms, and seems to have the best track record for stabilizing the mood swings and even for reducing instances of suicide. One difficulty with this drug, however, is the side effects of high blood pressure, water retention and constipation. So, new treatments are often sought to see if other drugs might work as well, with fewer repercussions. Interestingly, it's a breast cancer medicine called tamoxifen that has shown one of the best and quickest responses to a manic phase. Other mood stabilizers and antipsychotic drugs are also among the current treatments.

New drugs are being developed all the time, of course. And the constellation of manic depressive disorder illnesses is constantly being studied, and knowledge about them is always being refined. People who experience one of the manifestations of this disorder can help in their own treatment by reading up on whatever bipolar information they can find, working with a therapist, and being as attentive as possible to their own behavior and warning signs. Treating and controlling this illness is really a joint venture.

Related topics about manic depressive disorder
dissociative-disorder
It's often the case in the psychiatric world that people are mistakenly diagnosed with other disorders, when if fact they suffer from a dissociative disorder, either dissociative identity disorder (DID), depersonalization disorder, dissociative amnesia or dissociative fugue. Indeed, that diagnosis itself has been in and out of favor as a psychiatric diagnosis over the years, but the evidence now seems to suggest pretty strongly that it's very real. Part of the reason why there has been some hesitation in acknowledging that these are real disorders is because the symptoms are also associated with other problems, such as depression, post traumatic stress syndrome, and eating disorders.

manic-depressive-disorder
The collection of related illnesses known as manic depressive disorder (or manic depression or bipolar disorder) is characterized predominantly by swings between highly elevated moods (known as mania) and severely depressed moods. But because the permutations of the disorder can vary (rapid cycling between those extremes versus slower cycling, for example), it's often difficult to find the best treatments. In fact, finding a therapist who knows a great deal about this disorder is probably the first step in finding effective treatment.

delusional-disorder
Delusional disorder is one of the hardest psychiatric disorders to diagnose or treat. This is because the delusions are "non-bizarre;" that is, they can be theoretically plausible. The sufferer functions quite normally most of the time, and will often refuse to admit there is even a problem.