Tag Archives: Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

Mental Health

CBT as Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

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Bipolar disorder, known by many as manic depression, is a mental illness caused by a combination of factors, including neurological, biological, emotional, and environmental factors. It is most commonly described as mood cycling or mood swings, in which the patient cycles through moods of depression, mania, and normal behavior.

There are many treatment options for bipolar disorder. The most common treatment for bipolar disorder includes a combination of medication and therapy. However, some patients are not candidates for medication treatment. Patients that have a history of drug abuse, for instance, should in most cases not be placed on medication for bipolar disorder, as the risk for abuse is too great. Additionally, patients may not have a case of bipolar disorder severe enough to warrant medication. Other patients may choose to avoid the route of medication until it becomes absolutely necessary.

In response to these special cases in which medication treatment is not a viable option for bipolar disorder, that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, was developed. CBT is a type of therapy that assists patients in recognizing triggers and causes for their manic and depressive states. The patient can then learn techniques to avoid these triggers, and cope with symptoms during episodes. Seventy percent of bipolar disorder type one patients that undergo CBT experience one or fewer episodes within four years of starting the CBT treatment.

There are two main goals that are met by using CBT as treatment for bipolar disorder. The first goal is to recognize manic episodes before they become uncontrollable, and consciously change how they react to the episode. The second goal is to learn techniques, reactions, thoughts, and behaviors that can help to offset depression. These goals are realized through various techniques and activities prescribed by the therapist. With CBT, the treatment of bipolar disorder rests with the patient, who is given homework in the form of exercises and reading, which helps them to understand their condition and learn methods to cope with it.

The first step to successful treatment of bipolar disorder through CBT is to develop a treatment contract with the patient. This is a treatment plan that the patient agrees to follow, and also involves the patient’s promise to complete all homework assignments and take any prescribed medication as directed. Because the success of CBT depends largely on the patient’s responsibility and desire to cope with bipolar disorder, this is an important first step to successful treatment.

The second step to successful treatment of bipolar disorder through CBT is to monitor and grade moods. This is done with various worksheets that the therapist gives the patient. The patient may record their mood for the day, how many hours they have slept, their level of anxiety, and their level of irritability. Those with type two bipolar disorder may need to record their mood two or more times per day, as their moods cycle more often.

Understanding the pattern to mood cycling can help the patient then undergo the next step to CBT treatment for bipolar disorder. This step of CBT for treatment of bipolar disorder requires the patient to do homework in the form of worksheets and reading that will help the patient to understand how their thoughts effect their emotions. By understanding these things, the patient will be able to then practice altering their thoughts in a rational way to make emotions more rational as well, decreasing the number and severity of depressive and manic episodes.

The next step to CBT treatment for bipolar disorder is to learn how to recognize triggers. Triggers are the thoughts, emotions, situations, times of year, events, or environments that set off a depressive or manic episode. By learning how to understand and recognize their triggers, the patient can then learn to avoid the triggers entirely, thereby decreasing the number and severity of depressive and manic episodes.

Overall, CBT is a viable and quite successful treatment for bipolar disorder, and can be a healthy alternative to medication in some cases. If you feel you may be a candidate for CBT, you should contact your doctor or therapist to discuss this and other bipolar disorder treatment options.

Mental Health

Prozac for Bipolar Disorder, Bulimia, and Anxiety

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Prozac is a medication often prescribed for bipolar disorder, bulimia, and anxiety disorders. The medication is highly effective because it acts as a serotonin inhibitor, which means that it helps balance serotonin levels in the brain. Serotonin levels are responsible for mood stability, depressive states, and control of anxiety, fears, or phobias.

Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is a mental illness that is caused by a combination of biological, neurological, emotional, and situational factors. The true causes of bipolar disorder are not yet fully understood. However, it is understood that imbalances in the neurotransmitters of the brain, such as serotonin, are partially responsible for the predisposition of bipolar disorder in some patients.

Bulimia is an eating disorder in which the patient eats excessively then purges themselves of the food they have eaten through either vomiting or induced bowel movements. Bulimia is caused by a combination of psychological and emotional factors, and in some cases environmental factors. The emotional factors relating to bulimia are very similar if not identical to factors involved with depression and low self worth issues, which are connected to serotonin levels in the brain.

Anxiety disorders are thought to be caused by erratic fluctuations in brain chemistry. Anxiety is defined as the intense somewhat debilitating feeling that something horrible is going to happen. Everyone feels anxiety at some point, but typically the normal person has a logical reason to feel anxious. With anxiety disorders, the reason for the anxiety may not be known, or it may not be logical if it is known.

Prozac is an effective treatment for bipolar disorder, bulimia, and anxiety because it controls and balances the serotonin levels in the brain. In bipolar patients, it is often prescribed in conjunction with other medications. Prozac is an effective treatment for depression, but may cause manic episodes to worsen. For this reason, Prozac is generally prescribed along with an anti-psychotic drug that helps tone down manic episodes. Therapy sessions or counseling is also generally a part of treatment.

In bulimia patients, Prozac is often the only prescription given. However, it is combined with treatment of symptoms via counseling and therapy. The idea behind this counseling is to identify why the patient has developed a sense of self-worth, and to allow the patient to learn that what they perceive is not necessarily reality. This is very helpful in bulimia patients who binge and purge as a result of how they perceive their bodies.

Anxiety patients are often prescribed Prozac with great success. Counseling may also be a part of treatment. In therapy sessions, patients may learn techniques to control their anxiety through rationalization of situations that may not at first appear rational. For example, if a patient feels anxiety over a cigarette burning in an ashtray, they can learn techniques to allow their mind to rationalize the situation and understand that there is no real danger of fire, and therefore no reason for the anxiety. These techniques are very successful in conjunction with Prozac for treating anxiety.

Overall, Prozac is an effective treatment for many mood disorders. Along with Lithium, it is often considered a miracle drug, helping patients gain stability and normal lives while living with an unstable, unrealistic view of themselves or their surroundings.

Mental Health

Childhood Treatment Options for Bipolar Disorder

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Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, has in past years only been found in adults, while children with similar symptoms have been mistakenly diagnosed as have attention deficit disorder (ADD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, in recent years, psychiatrists and pediatricians have found that bipolar disorder definitely rears its ugly head in childhood as often as it does in adolescent or adult years.

Diagnosis of bipolar in childhood increases the chances for bipolar patients to have successful treatment and ordinary, uninhibited lives as adults. However, treatment options of bipolar in childhood is a controversial subject. Many doctors wish to medicate first, and regulate with therapy in addition to medications. However, many parents and some psychologists disagree with these methods.

Overall, many parents discover that once their child has been put on bipolar medications, the child seems to lose some of their personality traits that endear them to the parents. Children, and adults, who have been overly medicated or medicated when not absolutely necessary lose a sense of who they are. Some medications can make children overly despondent, seeming “out of it” or “spacey.” This causes concern for parents and doctors, and raises the question of whether or not the child is really better off on medication.

Play therapy can be quite effective in helping children with bipolar disorder live more successful childhoods. This play therapy typically involves placing children in various hypothetical situations in which they must work out a logical and emotionally healthy solution. While play therapy is very successful in some children, it is not enough for others. In certain childhood cases of bipolar disorder, the mood swings and symptoms are so severe that the child is not able to control their actions or emotional reactions to stimuli and situations.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a fairly new method of therapy for bipolar patients in which the patient learns to recognize symptoms of their illness, triggers for mood swings and inappropriate behavior, and alternatives to inappropriate behavior. Cognitive behavioral therapy also allows the patient to discover what he or she can do to avoid manic or depressive episodes, and how to manage the episodes more effectively. In adults, this treatment option is very viable, and works well both in conjunction with and without medication treatment.

However, cognitive behavioral therapy requires a level of problem solving and critical thinking that is not often present in childhood. For this reason, it is not commonly used in children with bipolar disorder under a certain age or maturity level. Some believe that the techniques learned through cognitive behavioral therapy could be equally viable in treating childhood bipolar disorder if the exercises and learning could be geared toward children. This, however, could prove difficult.

In the end, treatment options must be discussed with pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, parents, and teachers. Everyone involved in childhood must be involved in the treatment process in order for it to be successful. If a parent or teacher has concerns about the effects of childhood treatment for bipolar disorder in their child or student, those concerns should be expressed immediately so that changes in treatment can be made. Additionally, parents should not be afraid to change doctors if they feel their child is not benefiting from treatment or medication.

Mental Health

Celexa and Bipolar Disorder

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Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is a mental illness that manifests itself as mood swings or mood cycling between depressed, manic, or normal moods. There are two types of bipolar disorder. The first type, sometimes called raging bipolar, manifests itself as almost constant mild mania, with periods of sever mania alternating with depression. Mixed episodes where the patient displays both manic and depressive symptoms at the same time can also occur with this type of bipolar disorder.

The second type, sometimes called rapid cycling bipolar, manifests itself as almost constant depression, with alternating periods of mania and severe depression that can often last a few hours or a few days before cycling to the next episode.

Depression symptoms include oversleeping, extreme sadness, feelings of worthlessness or despair, irritability, anger, and withdrawl. Manic symptoms include sleeplessness, increased energy levels, distractibility, racing thoughts, obsessive behaviors, and extreme happiness.

There are many treatment options for bipolar disorder. Most patients with bipolar disorder require a combination of medication and therapy or counseling for successful treatment of symptoms. However, minor cases of bipolar disorder may not require medication, but may require instead cognitive behavioral therapy. There are some cases, such as in patients with a history of drug abuse, where medication may be recommended but is not a viable treatment option. These cases typically also use cognitive behavioral therapy to assist patients in coping with their illness.

Celexa is an anti-depressant, commonly used with bipolar patients. Celexa, or citalopram, is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI. This family of medications has the effect of balancing serotonin levels in the brain, which are thought to be responsible for mood stabilization.

Celexa is most successful as a treatment for unipolar depression and bipolar disorder type two patients. This is because it is an anti-depressant. Serotonin, the chemical in the brain that balances moods and particularly controls strong emotions, often presents imbalances in the form of depression. Celexa corrects these imbalances, giving the patient relief from depression.

Celexa is most successful as a treatment for bipolar disorder type one patients when used in combination with a mood stabilizer. As an anti-depressant, Celexa alone causes bipolar disorder type one patients to swing into a manic episode. Used in combination with a mood stabilizer or anti-psychotic, however, can allow for a balance of moods to take place, ending rapid or raging mood cycling.

Celexa has several possible minor side effects when used for treatment of bipolar disorder. Common side effects include drowsiness, cotton mouth, nausea, and trouble sleeping. Less common side effects include abdominal pain, anxiety, gas, headache, heartburn, increased sweating, pain in muscles or joints, increases or decreases in weight, weakness, and vomiting. If these side effects persist or become unbearable, you should contact your doctor.

Celexa can also have several possible major side effects when used for treatment of bipolar disorder. Common major side effects include a decrease in sexual desire or ability. Less common major side effects include agitation, confusion, blurred vision, fever, increase in urinal frequency, lack of emotion, decreased memory, skin rashes, and trouble breathing. If you experience any of these side effects you should contact your doctor immediately.

Friends, family and patients with bipolar disorder should keep in mind that even when using anti-depressants such as Celexa, suicide, suicide threats, and suicide attempts can still occur. Always be aware of the signs that can lead to suicide so that medical treatment can be found before an attempt is made.

Bipolar disorder should, in all cases, be treated with a combination of Celexa, or other medications, in conjunction with therapy or counseling. Bipolar disorder patients are encouraged to take active part in their treatment plans. Additionally bipolar patients should not attempt to self medicate or treat symptoms with medication alone. If you show symptoms of bipolar disorder, you should contact your doctor about Celexa and other treatment options.