Posted by SLS on July 17, 2004, at 19:18:00
In reply to SLS and Racer, posted by Dinah on July 17, 2004, at 18:42:32
Hi Dinah.
> I did a lot of mood charting about a year ago, but have gotten sloppy. It was really like clockwork. The meltdowns were every ten weeks or so, give or take two weeks either way. The meltdowns were followed by a stuporous period. Which was followed by a period where I was either reasonably normal or a bit thick and sleepy and apathetic, but not horribly so.
The common pattern found in bipolar illness is for depression to follow immediately after mania, and then by euthymia or something close to it. Your pattern, as you describe it, seems to follow this course. The key, then, is to prevent the hypomania. This might best be accomplished using a three-pronged approach:
1. Good sleep hygeine
- regular sleep schedule
- avoid advancing circadian rhythm2. Reduce psychosocial stress
- psychotherapy
- environment
- performance demands3. Usage of mood-stabilizing somatic treatments
- higher dosage of current mood stabilizer
- switch to different mood stabilizer
- combination of two mood stabilizers
- alternative treatments (omega-3, inositol)If I were a psychopharmacologist with a bias towards drug treatment, I would push hard for aggressive use of mood stabilizers. Wouldn't you?
:-)
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:366935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040714/msgs/367230.html