New Study Finds That Add-On Treatment Improves Depressive Symptoms In Bipolar Disorder

Lingering depression is a serious and common problem in bipolar disorder, and does not resolve well with existing treatments. Because individuals with both depression and bipolar disorder experience a glutathione deficiency, an antioxidant that protects cells from toxins, researchers in a new study scheduled for publication in the September 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry sought to evaluate whether N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), an over-the-counter supplement that increases brain glutathione, might help alleviate depressive symptoms. Read more

Write It Out

Clinicians  have found that the following journal exercise helps relieve ongoing sources of stress. A single attempt is not enough, though. When you first sit down to write about a problem, you may feel more anxious. The wound, once exposed, may initially hurt more than it did while hidden. But continuing to write about the same problem over the course of several days often enables you to work through difficult emotions and reach resolution or acceptance.

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Bright Light Therapy for Bipolar Disorder

By Rick Nauert, Ph.D.

A recent study finds bright light therapy can ease bipolar depression in some patients.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic studied nine women with bipolar disorder to examine the effects of light therapy in the morning or at midday on mood symptoms.

“There are limited effective treatments for the depressive phase of bipolar disorder,” said Dorothy Sit, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and the study’s first author. “While there are treatments that are effective for mania, the major problem is the depression, which can linger so long that it never really goes away.”

The study is published in the journal Bipolar Disorders.

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Marijuana Success Stories: #2 – Depression

By Anonymous

I am writing this because I believe it is important to get as much information as possible regarding medical marijuana use out into society, so that we can begin (it’s really sad we’re not there yet) to change public perception.  I am a 32-year-old music teacher, athletic coach and professional musician.  I am married and I have two children.  I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree.

My primary reason for using marijuana is to deal with symptoms related to periodic bouts of severe depression.  My mother is diagnosed bipolar, and her father was also.  Incidentally, his mother, my great-grandmother died by committing suicide.  It is likely she also suffered severe depression and it would appear that it is at least partly a genetic characteristic.

I was first diagnosed with clinical depression while I was in high school at approximately age 14.  But I am certain that my feelings and symptoms began at puberty around age 11.  At the time of my diagnoses I was adamantly opposed to the use of marijuana or drugs of any kind.  I was then and am now a competitive endurance athlete and saw it as being in opposition to that endeavor. Read more

Marijuana Success Stories: #1 – Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder

By John Frederick Wilson

In bipolar or manic-depressive disorder, the inconsolable misery of major depression alternates with mania or uncontrolled elation. In the manic phase people with bipolar disorder are cheerful, gregarious, talkative, energetic, and hyperactive. Their spending is often extravagant and their behavior reckless. They may imagine that they have extraordinary talents and are or soon will be rich and powerful. This reckless, restless cheerfulness and expansiveness can suddenly turn into incoherent agitation, irritability, rage, paranoia, or grandiose delusions.

Antidepressants alone are not a good treatment for bipolar disorder and may even make it worse. Lithium carbonate, introduced into medicine at about the same time as tricyclics, has revolutionized the treatment of bipolar disorder. It prevents mania and to a lesser extent bipolar depression. Although lithium takes several weeks to start working, its success rate is about 70 percent and 20 percent of patients are completely freed of their symptoms. Patients generally require long-term maintenance treatment, and because lithium can be toxic it must be used carefully. Chronic use may endanger the heart, kidneys, and thyroid gland. Usually the dose is gradually increased until the drug begins to work and then periodically readjusted according to the patient’s age, medical condition, and psychiatric symptoms.

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Understanding Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

At present, treatment for bipolar disorder is most often with a combination of a mood-stabilizing drug and psychotherapy. The main mood-stabilizing drugs used for the treatment of bipolar disorder include lithium carbonate, valproic acid (also known as Depakote) and carbamazepine (Tegretol), Lamictal, Topamax, Gabitril, and many other antiepileptic agents. They also include some newer antipsycohitic agents.

While drug treatment is primary, ongoing psychotherapy is important to help patients understand and accept the personal and social disruptions of past episodes and better cope with future ones. In addition, since denial is often a problem, routine psychotherapy helps patients stay on their medications. (Patient compliance is particularly tricky in adolescence.) Almost all forms of psychotherapy can be used — cognitive, behavioral, or psychodynamic; individual, family, or group therapy.

The family or spouse of a patient should be involved with any treatment. Having full information about the disease and its manifestations is important for both the patient and loved ones.
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Living with Schizoaffective Disorder

By Michael Crawford

Being schizoaffective is like having manic depression and schizophrenia at the same time. It has a quality all its own though which is harder to pin down.

Manic depression is characterized by a cycle of one’s mood between the opposite extremes of depression and a euphoric state called mania. Schizophrenia is characterized by such disturbances in thought as visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions and paranoia. Schizoaffectives get to experience the best of both worlds, with disturbances in both thought and mood. (Mood is referred to clinically as “affect”, the clinical name for manic depression is “bipolar affective disorder”.)

People who are manic tend to make a lot of bad decisions. It is common to spend money irresponsibly, make bold sexual advances or to have affairs, quit one’s job or get fired, or drive cars recklessly.

The excitement that manic people feel can be deceptively attractive to others who are then often conned into the belief that one is doing just fine – in fact they are often quite happy to see one “doing so well”. Their enthusiasm then reinforces one’s disturbed behaviour.

I decided that I wanted to be a scientist when I was very young, and throughout my childhood and teenage years worked steadily towards that goal. That sort of early ambition is what enables students to get accepted into a competitive school like Caltech and enables them to survive it. I think the reason I was accepted there even though my high school grades weren’t as good as the other students was in part because of my hobby of grinding telescope mirrors and in part because I studied Calculus and Computer Programming at Solano Community College and U.C. Davis during the evenings and summers since I was 16.

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Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

While medication is one key element in successful treatment of bipolar disorder, psychotherapy, support groups, and education about the illness are also essential components of the treatment process. The most useful psychotherapies generally focus on understanding the illness, learning how to cope with it, and changing ineffective patterns of thinking or interacting. Each of these components serves a critical role in helping people recognize the specific factors that can trigger their episodes. It is important for individuals with bipolar disorder, and their families, to play active roles in learning about the illness, and in developing and carrying out a treatment plan of the person’s choosing.

Many of the recent advances in the treatment of bipolar disorder reflect what researchers are learning about the nature and courses of this illness. If repeated episodes cause greater severity over the lifetime of the illness, then acute episodes of the illness must be treated effectively to halt its progress. Given that half of those developing bipolar illness start with depressive episodes, and that most experience depressive symptoms much more than they experience the “high” mood state of mania, placing them at increased risk of suicide, effective treatment for bipolar depression is a top priority. The ideal course of research is to identify medication that, used alone or in combination, effectively prevents episodes and offers maximum periods of symptom-free maintenance coverage during periods of remission. It is also important that these medications are tolerable enough for people to take, so that they will stick with a daily dose (adherence) as the cornerstone of being well and staying well.

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