Depression and Bipolar Disorder

Yes, both traumatic and organic brain injury can cause or exacerbate depression, depending on the area of the brain affected. These people may or may not respond to medication, depending on the extent, location, and nature of the injury.

Yes, but they cannot prescribe medication.

Typical features of Bipolar disorder: swings of mood rather like a metronome, from one extreme to another extreme. Depression versus Mania. Not to be confused by typical teenage behaviour.

around 10%

The indications of sertraline HCl do not expressly include bipolar disorder but some sources indicate that it can be used to treat the depressive side of bipolar disorder.

Anything that helps your help is good. There are no vitamins or food which will cure depression, but getting enough Vitamin D is important for absorbing calcium for healthy bones. When you're depressed, you don't take care of yourself, and taking a good multi-vitamin will help with that. Don't take more Vitamin D than recommended - and remember it is usually found in milk also.

Depression is a mental illness that can happen to really anyone and can cause both mental and physical symptoms.

It is a psychological disorder caused by underdeveloped neuron-receptors in the brain. Basically, individuals with ADHD have an inability to focus because their minds cannot interpret the satisfaction one associates with achieving a long term goal.

It can be hard to live with for many different reasons. First, your moods are always going up and down and you can't seem to find a balance between happy and sad. Second, sometimes if people know you have bipolar, sometimes rude people look down upon you because they think it's some kind of handicap so people are always thinking you are handicapped or some type of strange disease. Thirdly, a lot of people don't understand and think that you are just depressed and you literally can't help it, but they don't know that and they think you can just be happy all the time and think that you just have a bad attitude when you can't help it.

SSRIs increase the concentration of serotonin in the gap between the neuron synapses in certain part of the brain. This is the method of action of SSRIs, but WHY does this cause anti-depressant effect, it is still to be found.

Dissociative Identity Disorder can be corrected; it is debated whether it can be totally cured.

A trauma in life is occasionally what brings on multiple personalities; however, many multiples report being born multiple or developing multiple personalities naturally. It can be the way some people's brains react to survive a particular trauma. Some psychiatrists feel it could be genetic, but this is such a complex problem that this has never truly been proven and it is by trial and error that doctors find out more information as to how to handle their patients.

The therapist has to be extremely mindful of what they say to their patients because it could cause one or more of the personalities to come out. In a patient who is troubled by these personalities, the therapist normally strives to keep the patient on the level of their true normal personality. These therapists try to "integrate" the personalities by finding the 'normal personality' that best fits the patient and through therapy try to group the other personalities into the 'normal' one. Sounds strange, but it seems to be working. The only stress that is typically left on the patient is when they endure trauma or any stress through life and they have to fight the other personalities from striking out on their own from the normal personality that the patient and therapist has worked on.

Another good example is if you look up the Biography of 'Sybil' (whose real name was Shirley Ardell Mason and she was a teacher) whom I believe had over 9 different personalities. She never married. According to the book she was cured. Her trauma was over-bearing parents and her mother was cruel and mentall ill. Shirley Mason remained long time friends with her therapist.

Other books you may be interested in are: The Three Faces of Eve; The five of Me and The Minds of Billy Milligan. If you're interested in healthy or natural multiplicity, I would recommend this website: astraeasweb.net/plural/

== == Both depression and anxiety disorder can come from a common source, namely seratonin imbalance. Seratonin is a neurotransmitter produced by the body that does an amazing little balancing "dance" to get just enough across the synaptic gap and still save some for later. When too little is available, or too much goes across the gap, the result is worse than a noise phone line or a cell phone conversation with only a bar or two of signal, and neurons don't have time to say, "can you hear me now?" Seriously, though, treatment for depression and anxiety can be as simple as taking a pill every day. Some people are uncomfortable with these pills, known as antidepressants, because many feel that medical dependence is identical to addiction. It isn't. Just like a diabetic is not "addicted" to insulin, so a person with serotonin imbalance is not "addicted" to antidepressants; in both cases the extra material is merely medically necessary. On a personal note, I've fought with depression and anxiety for most of my life. Only about 7 years ago did I discover that it was chemical, not mental. Yes, there is a mental side to both depression and anxiety; when your body makes you feel a certain way, you'll treat situations in such a way that they'll make you more depressed or anxious. I finally had to get help after nearly passing out at work due to a panic attack, a condition also associated with serotonin imbalance but not necessarily the same as anxiety in all cases. Now that my body is able to deal with its issues, my mind can deal with the rest. This is not something you should self-treat, though! While some people can get relief through herbal remedies such as St. John's Wort, more often than not this requires prescription-strength treatment and careful monitoring, especially during the first few weeks of treatment. You won't necessarily have to go into a hospital or other "institution," although if your medication gets way off balance (which can happen due to life changes, pregnancy, interactions with other medications, and other issues), you may have to be hospitalized temporarily for treatment. I haven't had to do this yet, but I caught it in time, and I stay in touch with my internist to make sure everything's OK. My internist is also well-versed in these things; not all are. It sounds rougher than it is, really. Joe is absolutely right! It's as easy as being diagnosed and given an antidepressant and working with your doctor and following orders. Some people don't have to be on antidepressants for the rest of their lives (I'm one of the fortunate ones). While doing so through medication therapy is also helpful to take "Cognitive Therapy Course" by Belinda Basset and it worked! I can play one of her tapes in my car. I suffered from stress (also known as anxiety) when my father had his stroke and between working, helping my mother out with my father and just getting married I basically was burning the candle at both ends. I really didn't know what was happening to me. Probably getting anxiety (panic attacks as well that turned into Agoraphobia) saved my life and made me realize I had to start adjusting my stress and learn how to do that. I now look at problems in my life in a more healthy way and don't waste my energy on "what ifs" or "I could get anxiety back again." yes depression leads to anxiety and anxiety leads to depression.

You - or anyone else on this earth.

There is three ways to "get" mental illness

1. Hereditary - Mental Illness can and usually is passed down from generation to generation. It can skip generations and doesn't always show as the same mental illness it can be any of the diagnosis (Dx)

2. Environmental- Child abuse, rape, trauma etc can cause the brain to "tilt" and a person can become Obsessive Compulsive (OCD) Schizophrenic, etc.

3. Chemical- Certain drugs like PCP and LSD, can cause long term mental illness like Schizophrenia, Babies born addicted to Meth. often are born with ADHD, OCD, Aspergers etc. If a pregnant mother is exposed to dangerous chemicals the effect on the baby can be permanent mental illness as well as physical disabilities.

It is highly unlikely to have both, rather than Bipolar Affective Disorder.

It is commonly believed by persons with a childhood diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, that their later diagnosis of Bipolar Affective Disorder is an incorrect diagnosis and that they suffer from ADD/ADHD and depression despite skilled clinicians identifying the behavior.

The reason for this is simple: ADD/ADHD is a controversial diagnosis often made on pediatric patients by General Practioners untrained in pediatric psychiatry. While a real and debilitating ailment in actual suffers, ADD/ADHD is diagnosed in more than 3 times as many children as sufferers later appear in the adult population (meaning either that spontaneous remission occurs or that a mental illness can be outgrown by some, but not others- both of which are implausible).

The issue comes down to wishful thinking and drug seeking behavior: the drugs of choice for the treatment of ADD/ADHD are amphetamines. And the patients are habituated to them (which is medical speak for addicted). Once a diagnosis of Bipolar Affective Disorder is made, these drugs are strictly counter-indicated, and slowly withdrawn.

The patient perfers the amphetamine (a drug of abuse which they are habituated to) over the standard regimine of treatment, and insists on the prior diagnosis in an attempt to secure their preferred drug.

No, that's not correct. Depression does not cause throwing up and coughing up blood, and it typically doesn't prevent you from sleeping either; depressed people usually sleep more, rather than less (since sleep is a form of temporary escape from the waking world). I find it hard to believe that any doctor would diagnose the symptoms you describe as the result of depression. See a different doctor.

Sure, but he can't legally say that is the reason. He can legally say "poor work performance" and dump you as he couldn't care less why these days.

I know a legally blind man where I used to work. After the company had spent several $10,000s on assistance devices for him as required by ADA, they got tired of the expense and deliberately wrote a "poor work performance" review on him that most employees I discussed it with thought was faked, so they could fire him, bypass ADA, and save the money.

Yes. Please take under medical supervision.

Olanzapine (Zyprexa) is an atypical neuroleptic (antipsychotic) that is approved for use by the FDA in combination with Fluoxetine (Prozac) for long-term treatment of Treatment Resistant Depression and for acute depressive episodes in Type 1 Bipolar Affective Disorder.

It's in the word. Bi = two, so bipolar means two poles. In the case of bipolar disorder, these are depression and mania/hypomania. Uni = one, so unipolar means one pole. Unipolar is generally used to describe depression on its own, without mania.

No... it can't. But your reaction to the things that are happening in your life, some of which are influenced by the poor economy, can... and if you are talking about depression, the emotion, rather than depression as in the economy... no that can't make you insane either, but it is part of your mental health as well. The important thing with both scenarios is to try to focus on something that is positive and hopeful... they are there, even though sometimes they are hard to see.

Simply put, depressants slow your body down, while stimulants speed your body up. Depressants slow your heart rate, breathing and brain activity, and make you relaxed and sleepy, while stimulants increase your heart rate, breathing and brain activity, and make you hyperactive.

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Increased energy

yes candy and sweets, which are simple carbohydrates, have the greatest impact, but the effect will only last 1 - 2 hours.

Complex carbohydrates (rice, potato, pasta) may increase serotonin levels, but not to the same extent because the protein content of these foods might actually inhibit serotonin production.

carbohydrates trigger the release of insulin into the blood stream, which clears all the amino acids from the blood, except tryptophan. When competitors are out of the way, the tryptophan floods the brain, where it's converted to serotonin. Whole-grain breads, crackers, pasta, rice, cereal, and fruit all have the potential to increase your serotonin level.

The dietary supplement 5-HTP (5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan) is promoted as a treatment for insomnia, depression, migraine, obesity and attention deficit disorder in children. It is a derivative of the amino acid tryptophan and, in fact, the body makes it from the tryptophan present in beef, chicken, fish, dairy products and other high protein foods.

The prevalence rate of bipolar disorder appears to be equal among men and women