As a care giver,diagnostician and treatment recommender, I am cautioning you to be very sure about your diagnosis of Bi-Polar disorder. I have seen too many patients diagnosed with this disorder that are not Bi-polar. I have seen this especially in pre-adolescents and adolescents. Don't be quick to accept this diagnosis without a full history that includes family, medical soacial and trauma histories. There is a lot of undisclosed physical and sexual abuse out there htat left untreated starts to look like bipolar but it is not. It can be diagnosed with mood disorder of depressive disorder not otherwise specified. Another issue that psychiatrists forget that I argue with them on many ocassions is PUBERTY. Puberty causes mood changes, physical changes and a whole host of behaviors that have been diagnosed as bipolr. Well for all practical purposes it is not. I have only seen a hand full of true bipolar disorders over the last few years. Besides medication is not the only answer and therapy in conjunction with medication if needed will help a person in the long run. Since bi-polar disorder is a combination of symptoms and behaviors there is no clear cut treatment options in regards to medications. So seriously look at your problems and get a second opinion before you start taking medication that makes you goofy and possibly worse.
Be sure of your diagnosis
Ahhhhhhh...finally a voice of reason
Thanks Paul for stepping up and voicing a concern that I have myself spoken of for years here and with NAMI. This idea that we now have bipolar children running everywhere is plain ludicrous. So many kids are being miss-diagnosed with a serious mental illness and giving medications that have already shown to have harmful side effects with the adult population taking them.
I think it was about a year ago where they were leading the charge that maybe it could be diagnosed in infants as young as one to three year old's. Seems pretty clear with the pharmaceuticals paying for these trials that the only results published would be ones favoring these giants.
It seemed there for awhile that bipolarism became the illness of the month where if anyone was doing anything out of the ordinary...they were pegged bipolar. I so wish that there was a conclusive test that could be performed to be exact with the diagnoses. I think if this test were to come about and everyone now deemed bipolar had to take it...there would be a lot less of us with the diagnoses.
The problem of Bi-polar disorder is that it did not actually exist till 1994. At that point the new DSM-IV came out and classified the disorder. In the Prior DSM-III-R it would have fallen under Manic-Depressive Syndrome. I know there are true bi-polar sufferers out there but the voge review of trying to fix things with a pill was spurred on by the freedom of Television to help you self-diagnose and obtain treatment for a disorder that the television add has convinced you that you have. The other issue is that Bi-polar disorder is not so much just the depression and mood swings along with mania, there is also a component of psychosis involved in it. That is what the current medication targets. Geodone, and the other popular drugs were basically 4th generation of atypical-antipsychotics that are being used for bi-polar disorder because nobody is being diagnosed with schitzophrenia. Or the fact is that 16 years ago everyone with behavior problems and mood disorders was getting the schitzophrenia diagnosis. Like all children are considered ADHD but actually most of the ADHD is environmental in nature. And yes, it needs to be medicated but other things in the life need to be changed. Paul A. Bensur Jr. PhD-LPC
Most folks don't want to know that there is no name for what ails them.
They want a name to label it, to make it real and valid.
If it has a name and there is a bottle of pills to go with it, then it is real and valid.
Otherwise, it may actually have to do with something they are doing or not doing and no one, particulary parents these days with children who are being drugged, want to hear that it might be something "in the air" at home.
Are there children who are truly struggling with some type of mental illness at age 10 or even younger? Sure
Are there as many children for whom are being drugged and their brains, emotional responses, and coping skills altered on the drugs? No
Other factors must be considered and other ways to manage, handle, combat, or treat should be considered, attempted, and worked on with great effort before the first pill is handed out and swallowed. Then, once the pill is handed out and swallowed - further therapy, training, work, effort, and learning must coincide with the pills so that perhaps one day.. Johnny or Mary Sue might not need those chemicals they are ingesting or not need so friggin many.
Many many parents and guardians will argue to their last breath that their child had to have the Seroquel at age 5 or the Lithium which damaged their kidneys at age 7 (know a kid this happened to and is on dialysis) or Abilify at age 12. Not mentioning all the other meds in addition to...
What we are doing is raising a large population of future adults hooked and subsisting on pharmaceutical chemical muck, labeled as mentally ill and/or developmentally disabled due to a emotional disorder, and will either land in prison - on the street - hooked on illegal substances - or vegatating in perhaps skilled nursing homes collecting disability checks and needing others to care for them - or out in society trying to have relationships with others and not faring so well
all the while saying to themselves and others "It's not my fault. I'm Bipolar. You can't hold me responsible. I'm sick see."
Somewhere in the year of 1987 half of an elementary school was on ritalin. These children had children and they have learning difficulties and cost the tax payer money and the parents frustration. However the big drug companies are rich beyond the averace of Solomen's mines. All for a buck this next generation is going to be on disability rather than working and then what for us who will be thinking of retirement. Problem is that the social security wil be gone and hte drug companies will still be wealthy but not wise. God help us all. If you are given the diagnosis by a doctor, seek a second opinion. See a counselor who does evaluations or a psychologist that is not so eager to assign you a medication that will eliavate symptoms but kill some organ function in the body. My favorite synopsis is this. A man goes to the doctor because his hair is falling out. He gets pills but then his blood pressure gors up, back to the doctor due to his BP problem. Next he has erectile disfunction and goes for more pills. His hair grows back, his BP is normal and he can get it up but now his liver is wrecked and he has other problems. Vanity. This goes back to the old rhyme about For want of a Nail the Kingdom was lost". Pills don't cure things they just make you die slower in some cases.
I am not saying that pills are not good. What I am saying is if they are used appropriately and for the right reason, they can extend life and help people to live a productive life. However, given the incorrect diagnosis and the medication that goes with that diagnosis, you wil die in some form. This is to say that some part of you will malfunction. In the past if thorizine was given to someone who was not psychotic. The effect of the Thorazine would cause a person to become psychotic and therefore proves the fact that they were psychotic even know they were not psychotic. Psychosis in this form was brought about by medication and not by improper firing of neurons or the improper amount of neurochemicals in the brain. Medication can be a good thing if it is used for the right reasons and for the right diagnoses.
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Thanks Paul, for stopping in and informing us of the difficulty of diagnosing pre-adolescents ad adolescents. Yes, at that age other factors can contribute to mood disorders and first episode diagnosis is also difficult. Psychiatrists must realize that proper diagniosis is important and improper treatment based on a wrong diagnosis can be harmful in more ways than one.