Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar blogger Natasha Tracy offers exclusive insight into the world of bipolar disorder.
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Apr 30 2012
Biological Evidence of Bipolar Disorder – Part 2: Genetics
Part one of this series discussed the biological differences between a brain with bipolar disorder and one without and while several differences were noted, none can definitively be used to diagnose bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, it’s a s...
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Apr 25 2012
Biological Evidence of Bipolar Disorder
One of the most frustrating things about my job as a mental health writer has to be dealing with the people that say that mental illness doesn’t exist. It’s dealing with the people who say that bipolar disorder doesn’t exist because there is no...
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Apr 11 2012
Dry Mouth: The 'Minor' Side Effect That Can Cause Major Problems
I’ve been taking medications for about 14 years now and in that time I have experienced everything from fainting in the middle of the kitchen at work, to becoming psychotic and tachycardic thanks to psychiatric medication. And really, when...
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Apr 04 2012
Do Antipsychotics Shrink Your Brain? Should You Care?
Antipsychotics (like quetiapine (Seroquel), olanzapine (Zyprexa), or aripiprazole (Abilify)) are actually now the highest-grossing psychiatric medication, ahead of even antidepressants. Antipsychotics (also known as neuroleptics or major tranquili...
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Mar 28 2012
Is Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (NOS) Really a Bipolar Illness?
When diagnosing bipolar disorder, a psychiatrist assesses previous mood episodes. These mood episodes must reach the criteria for major depression and either mania or hypomania in order to warrant a diagnosis of bipolar disorder I or bipolar disor...
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Mar 21 2012
Alternative Treatments for Bipolar Disorder
I am not a proponent of alternative treatment. If you look in my bathroom cabinet you will not find kudzu root or ginseng or little tinctures of magic potions. I don’t believe in them. Period. If something, natural or not, were to work for men...
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Mar 14 2012
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Effective for Bipolar Disorder
When someone begins treatment for bipolar disorder, I always recommend therapy along with medication because we know from studies that the combination of the two treatments works better than either alone.However, most people think about psychother...
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Mar 07 2012
Five Drug-Free Products That Make You Sleep Better
Sleep is something that everyone needs and it’s something that everyone has trouble getting from time to time. If you have a mental illness though, you know that sleep can be a challenge every night of the week. In the case of bipolar disorder...
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Feb 29 2012
“Soft” Signs of Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is not one thing. Much like the manifestations of depression or schizophrenia can differ from person to person, so can bipolar disorder. In fact, sometimes bipolar disorder doesn’t look like bipolar disorder at all. Some re...
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Feb 22 2012
How Mice Are Helping Us Understand Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is very difficult to study for many reasons but one of which is because suitable animal models for bipolar disorder have not been found as they have been for depression. However, in 2007 an animal modal for mania was found....
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