The diagnosis of manic-depressive disorder is made through the identification of manic and depressive symptoms. However, the problem is that it is not as easy as it sounds to confirm the history of mania and depression.
This is because, in many cases, those who had mild mania in the past answered that they did not have any problems with their mood because they did not perceive it as a disease, and that depression in manic depressive disorder was simply a feeling of sagging and tiredness rather than a feeling of depression, and many answered that they had never been depressed.
If you have only experienced depression, you can suspect bipolar disorder based on the pattern of depression and your family history, but there is no way to confirm the condition in advance until manic is observed. There is no diagnostic test that can confirm bipolar disorder. Psychological testing is also a supplementary reference material and is not intended to confirm a diagnosis or replace an expert interview.
Neither a blood test nor an MRI of the brain can tell if you have bipolar disorder. Conducting various tests is to rule out physical diseases that sometimes appear like bipolar disorder. For example, a thyroid disease, an immunological disease, or a brain disease.
In addition, blood tests and electrocardiogram tests are performed to check for possible side effects of the drug before taking medication.
Treatment can be divided into manic treatment, depression treatment, and preventive maintenance treatment, and drug treatment is the most important. Mania can most often be controlled with medications. Hospitalized patients also improve within 3 to 4 weeks. In the case of mania, mood modulators and antipsychotic drugs may be used.
For mild depression, it is desirable to watch it for once without using antidepressants. It can be converted to manic spontaneously or by antidepressants. Depression of bipolar disorder is sometimes difficult because the treatment effect is insufficient or appears slowly. However, if you continue the treatment and wait patiently, it will eventually get better.
Electroshock therapy can be helpful when depression is severe or when medications are unresponsive and unbearable. After the mania and depression have subsided, the drug is kept to a minimum for a long time to prevent recurrence. Then, when there are signs of relapse, the drug can be added or the dose increased.
The most important thing to prevent relapse is to add or adjust medication quickly when there are signs. To do so, you must be familiar with the symptoms of relapse.
The problem is that I do not recognize that I am manic, and I often get angry with people around me for treating me as a patient. Mania is usually noticed by people around you before you. Depression, on the other hand, is felt first before those around you.
Psychotherapy is also good. Even if bipolar disorder is not a disease from psychological causes, psychological factors can influence the onset and exacerbation of symptoms. Also, people with bipolar disorder are often more vulnerable to stress.
Psychotherapy deals with coping with stress and how to live with bipolar disorder. The first priority in psychotherapy is understanding and education on the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Manic depression itself is the greatest stress for patients. Helping you manage your bipolar disorder is the most important part of psychotherapy.
When the patient is depressed, accept the decline in function, encourage them not to give up, and persevere. When mania begins, frivolous actions should be avoided and medications should be adjusted as soon as possible. It’s also worth remembering to put important decisions on hold when you have symptoms of depression or mania.
In order to prevent recurrence, it is important to educate them so that they can understand the signs of recurrence. In addition to managing bipolar disorder well, coping with stress is done individually.
The alternating appearance of excessive inferiority and superiority needs may itself be the manifestation of a complex. Dealing with personal complexes can make symptoms worse, so it’s helpful to treat them appropriately.
Living with bipolar disorder, accepting bipolar disorder itself as an existential condition (destiny) rather than frustration can be an existential treatment for living a meaningful life.