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Bipolar Disorder Treatments Early intervention strategies rival each other for bizarreness and cruelty. Contemporary accounts from ancient Greece describe a particularly brutal treatment that was perhaps a precursor to electro convulsive therapy. Temple priests on an Aegean island threw depressed patients into the sea from a very high cliff. Other priests waited in boats in the water below to rescue the "patients" from drowning. The accounts say that many of the subjects of this unorthodox procedure recovered (perhaps cured by the shock of the harrowing experience). In ancient Phoenicia, the mentally ill were sequestered abroad a "ship of fools" and set adrift to roam the seas in search of more hospitable harbors. During the Middle Ages in Europe, exorcists coaxed the "demons" from the bodies of those who acted strangely. I'm sure they got their practice and source of information from the Bible story noted in Luke 8:26-34. Some say this still works today. "Shock treatments" were administered to eighteenth century patients by twirling them on stools until their ears bled or by dropping them through trapdoors into icy lakes (brrr). As late as 1806, a prominent 30 year old attorney from Vermont was treated for bipolar depression by having his head held down in a bucket of water. When the first bipolar disorder treatments proved unsuccessful, his head was held under for increased lengths of time until he finally drowned. More of these bizarre bipolar disorder treatments will be told as we find them in our research. Aren't you glad you do not have to go through any of these types of treatments? Though in reality we'll see if we have advanced all that much in the twenty-first century as we touch base with reports from Lawrence Stevens, J.D. a lawyer whose practice includes representing psychiatric "patients." Medical Treatment Options for Bipolar Disorder However, bipolar medications can be very tricky because the human body is very unique and fantastically complex. When choosing to use bipolar medications for the treatment of bipolar often a variety of medications are required to control the mood disorder. Prescription drugs are often used to control mania, depression, and psychosis. Drug Therapy Lithium was initiated in 1949 for drug therapy, by John F. J. Cade, an Australian psychiatrist. He discovered that doses of the drug lithium given to frightened guinea pigs changed their behavior from severely agitated to calm and docile. Cade then administered lithium as a bipolar disorder treatment to several psychiatric patients with manic depression. The patients became emotionally stable according to his study. Lithium gradually came to be recognized as a highly effective treatment for mania. The problem with lithium treatment is that there is a fine line between therapeutic and toxic levels of this drug. If the prescribed dose is too high, lithium poisoning can occur. Lithium poisoning affects the brain. Symptoms are slurred speech, drowsiness, loss of balance, tumors, vomiting, diarrhea, and ultimately, coma and death. This doesn't sound so great to me-how about you? In order to find the right dosage, frequent blood tests must be taken to check the lithium concentration in the bloodstream. During the first week of lithium therapy, lithium blood concentrations rises rapidly. After the lithium blood concentration stabilizes, the number of tests can be reduced. However, if you choose lithium as your preferred drug of choice, remember it is imperative to have these tests continued, as lithium concentration can change when diet, healthiness, or activity levels alter.
Personally lithium is not my preferred choice,
regarding bipolar disorder treatments. How did all this drug therapy get started? In 1952, French psychiatrists Jean Delay and Pierre Deniker tested and used chlorpromazine (Thorazine) to calm psychotic agitation. Soon afterwards, the family of drugs known as tricyclics were developed in a further attempt to treat psychotic behavior. Although ineffective when used for psychosis, these drugs did seem to raise the spirits of many people in the throes of chronic depression. So by accident these tricyclics soon became considered one of the primary choices of bipolar disorder treatment. As a result, the commercial development of tricyclics and other anti-depressants soon followed. The problem of how to medically treat mood disorders was basically solved backwards. Neurotransmitters are difficult to isolate and study, since these chemicals are released in extremely small quantities, and any extra amount released is broken down by enzymes and reabsorb into the cell. At the time when the first antidepressant was discovered, very little was known about neurotransmitters. In fact, the first antidepressant was discovered by accident in the course of an attempt to manufacture an anti-psychotic drug. It was only after the antidepressant had been administered to patients and found to be an effective treatment for depression that the biological changes in patients could be analyzed. Researches discovered that when one of several types of neurotransmitters malfunctioned, the patient experienced mood fluctuations. The primary neurotransmitters linked to mood instability were norepinephrine and serotonin. The neurotransmitter dopamine has also been linked to mood disorders. Subsequent research (Beavers, 1969) has found that increasing levels of serotonin cause elevation of mood, while extremely high levels of serotonin cause manic states. Low levels of serotonin have been linked to depression. I suggest drug therapy, only, as a primary choice of bipolar disorder treatment as an life and death intervention. Afterwards with the help of your doctor slowly wean yourself off the drugs. In the meantime begin learning appropriate ways to redirect your misfiring neurotransmitters in your brain with changes in your life style, habits, diet, thoughts, and social activities with the help of a qualified psychotherapist. He can help you target thoughts and behavior in an attempt to initiate appropriate chemical changes in your brain. If he can't help you don't give up. Try again with a different therapy, a different therapist, or a different doctor. Electroconvulsive therapy was introduced in 1938 as one of the prominent choices for bipolar disorder treatments. Today, this procedure is often considered the treatment of last resort, because it is the most invasive among the various interventions available. Electroconvulsive therapy uses electrodes attached to the patient's head to induce a seizure in the brain. This type of seizure seems to increase the level of certain neurotransmitters, the chemicals that transmit nerve impulses from one cell to another. After a short series of treatments administered during a two-week period, depressed patients are often able to regain a normal range of emotions. Confusion and memory loss are also frequent byproducts of this type of therapy. Although both these effects are usually short term, full memory restoration can take up to two weeks, or in some cases, the loss can be permanent. Although, not a cure for depression, ECT can be an effective treatment for those patients who don't respond to medication. Such individuals have an 80-90 percent chance of responding positively to ECT, which also elicits a much quicker response than drug therapy. Research indicates that ECT can reduce the time required for recovery from depression; but the invasive nature of shock treatment, and its possible side effects, still make it an undesirable treatment for most people. On the other hand we have reports that ECT rather than eliminating depression, the memory loss and lost mental ability caused by ECT has cause some subjected to ECT so much anguish they have committed suicide after receiving this "bipolar disorder treatment." ECT consists of electricity being passed through the brain with a force from 70-400 volts and an amperage of from 200 milliamperes to 1.6 amperes (1600 milliamperes). The electric shock is administered for as little as a second to a few long seconds. The electricity in ECT is so powerful it can burn the skin on the head where the electrodes are placed. The electricity going through the brain causes seizures so powerful the so-called patients receiving this so-called therapy have broken their own bones during the seizures. Guess what the psychiatrists do to prevent this. Yes, they administer a paralyzing drug immediately before the so-called treatment. Of course, the worst part of ECT is brain damage, not broken bones. So do be careful when your doctor chooses this form of bipolar disorder treatment for you. Psychoanalysis Bipolar Disorder Treatment The greater part of the twentieth century in American psychiatry was dominated by Freudian thought. Freud promulgated the belief that depressive disorders are the result of internalizing a lost object or relationship, then turning the anger about the loss against the self. He believed that the environment and early childhood experiences were responsible for all mental disorders, including depression and bipolar illness. If you were depressed, you needed to enter psychoanalysis and talk about past traumas from your infant and childhood periods. However, it is now believed psychoanalysis alone is not a useful treatment for depression or the different types for bipolar disorders. Experienced clinicians tell us depression and mood instability may be due, in part, to psychological stress; but there may be many other possible components to these disorders. In 1937, Freud himself said, "The future may teach us how to exercise a direct influence, by means of particular chemical substances, upon the amount of energy and its distribution in the apparatus of the mind. It may be that there are other undreamed-of possibilities of therapy." Based on Freud's theories, people generally viewed depression and bipolar illness as if they were the result of a character flaw within the victim, rather than illnesses like diabetes and tuberculosis. In reality, though, mood disorders are also medical illnesses caused much in the same way diabetes or hypertension is. There is no shame involved in having diabetes nor should there be any shame associated with bipolar affective disorder. Consciousness-raising organizations and nationwide educational campaigns are doing much to erase the social stigma of depression and manic depression. Once one realizes the biochemistry of the brain has changed due to varying factors such as diet, trauma, grief, financial loss, or combination thereof it then becomes understood the brain is just "broken," much in the same way a bone is broken. If it's broke you simply fix it. Psychological therapy ...is one of the choices of bipolar disorder treatments I recommend. Mood disorders-especially depression usually respond to the use of certain kinds of psychotherapy. Interpersonal therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are the two types that seem to work best. Instead of focusing on probable causes of the depression, which may have originated the patient's childhood, each of these therapies deals directly with how depression makes one think and act, and what needs to be done about it in order to bring change. Cognitive-behavioral therapy...is based on the theory that patients suffering from depressive disorders see themselves, their family and friends, and their surroundings in a negative light. Negative thought usually breed negative emotions. More often than not, a depressed person's assessment of his or her situation is inaccurate. Cognitive therapies help depressive patients see the errors in their thinking and recognize the feelings and behavior that result from their distorted view. This particular bipolar disorder treatment was especially helpful to me. Interpersonal-therapy ...is based on the premise that people in the midst of a mood disorder are also having problems with the primary relationships in their lives. A depressed person's relationship with his or her spouse, children, parents, and friends will most likely be strained. It is considered immaterial whether these relationships became difficult because the patient developed a mood disorder, or whether the difficult relationship was the original cause of the depressive episode. As one of the choices of bipolar disorder treatment the interpersonal therapist helps the patient discover the exact problem and its possible solutions within each troubling relationship. Once resolved the chemical toxins are reduced in the endocrine system thus helping to readjust the chemical balance in the brain to normal production. Which bipolar disorder treatment is best for you? Well, some studies have shown that psychotherapy performs better in the treatment of depression. For example, one National Institute of Mental Health study showed that cognitive and drug therapies had about the same success rate, but fewer patients treated with cognitive therapy relapsed. That ought to tell us something don't you think? Other studies have suggested that for severely depressed people, cognitive and drug therapies are most effective when combined. Most clinicians agree that bipolar disorders are rarely responsive to a course of therapy that does not include drug treatment at least initially. Psychotherapy is therefore, only an adjunctive in treating bipolar conditions. The psychological makeup of each individual can also have a bearing on whether a particular patient will respond better to drugs or to what's considered talking therapy. For patients who are not particularly self-aware, or who cannot separate themselves from their feelings or actions, drugs are often more helpful initially. But if possible it's best they be weaned off the drugs as soon as they can take responsibility for their own bipolar disorder treatment choices. The most important point here is that different types off mood disorders can be helped by different kinds of bipolar disorder treatments. If the first treatment or therapy does not work keep trying until one does. You may also want to look at
natural or alternative therapy. Though your bipolar disorder may require initial professional care I believe self care is the best choice concerning bipolar disorder treatments available. There are lots of things you can do right now to help control your future manic depressive episodes: Read, read, read. Please inform yourself and begin your journey toward wellness.
Then as soon as you can begin your journey toward Optimal WELLNESS just like I did.
Read how I did it and how you can too. Right here - Right now.
Dr. Cares™
The author of this website is not an M.D. and therefore must post this required FDA disclaimer. None of the statements, self testing, nor recommended alternatives for relief of bipolar symptoms have been evaluated by the FDA. Therefore, the tested and proven experiences, testimonies, supplements and alternative and natural alternatives are for informational purposes only and does not purport to prescribe, diagnose or cure any mental or physical condition. Though as a licensed counselor she does advise her clients to be informed and involved in the recovery of their physical, spiritual and mental health. The above information has transformed many lives and the same can happen for you, but you alone are responsible for the decisions you make concerning all aspects of your health. Bipolar Disorder Treatments to No More Bipolar Disorder
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Catherine Sinclair, PhD. uses the trade name Dr. Cares™. She is a licensed pastoral counselor. The information contained in this website is not to be taken as a substitute for professional advice from your qualified medical "practitioner." 
