Practicing an Ounce of Prevention

Maintaining car´s health with regular oil changes and the occasional tune-up helps keep it running trouble free for thousands of miles. Maintaining your physical health reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, and other major illnesses. Maintaining your mental health delivers similar benefits; yet, even after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, people often ignore medical orders and continue to roll the dice in a game they are almost certain to lose.

Don´t gamble with your mental health. After you´ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, establish a preventive maintenance plan to ward off relapse and minimize the damage of unavoidable mood episodes. Take the following actions:
· Accept your diagnosis.
· Take your medicine as prescribed.
· Monitor your moods for early warning signs, and consult your doctor at the first sign of trouble.
· Identify and eliminate your stressors.
· Build a strong support network

Source: Bipolar Disorder, candida Fink, MD, Joe Kraynak

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Shedding light on the kindling effect

Managing bipolar disorder proactively is important not only in helping prevent mood episodes, but also in thwarting what some doctors refer as to the kindling effect—the worsening of the disorder over time. The kindling effect is a process that´s known to occur in the brains of people with seizures. Seizures are electrical storms in the brain, triggered by chemical changes or other physical stresses on the brain cells. With every storm, the brain can become more and more sensitized. Eventually, the brain can seize over and over again without any type of trigger. The cells seem to “memorize” the electrical storms and repeat them. Neurologists aggressively focus on treating seizures to prevent kindling, which progressively increases the frequency and severity of seizures.
Seizures and mood disorders_ particularly bipolar disorder- are thought to have many similarities, chemically and electrically. Some experts suggest that the kindling effect can occur in bipolar disorder—that each mood episode is like a storm that with each episode the brain becomes more sensitized, eventually having more frequent episodes that require fewer emotional triggers. According to the theory, early in the course of the illness, a major stressor is required to trigger a mood episode, but as more and more episodes spontaneously instead of waiting for a trigger.

Doctors haven´t clearly identified the kindling effect in bipolar disorder, and if it occurs, it´s likely much more complex that what happens with seizures. Perhaps some brains are more vulnerable to kindling than others. Whether or not the kindling model accurately pertains to bipolar disorder, reducing the frequency of mood episodes is beneficial for your health and quality of life in many ways.

Source: Bipolar Disorder, candida Fink, MD, Joe Kraynak

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Proacting: Preventing Flare ups

               
If you tell the average person he has a terminal cancer, he´s likely to curl up in the fetal position and weep. How you respond to your diagnosis and how ambitiously you pursue treatment and therapy have a huge effect on the outcome. If you deny that you have a problem, lose hope, or try to self-medicate with alcohol and other substances, the disorder wins. If you discover the right medication, confront your hidden demons through therapy, and remain vigilant, you prevail

Source: Bipolar Disorder, candida Fink, MD, Joe Kraynak

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Reacting: Extinguishing the flames

Envelop by a full-blown mania or depression, you face limited choices. If you pose no threat to yourself or others, you can choose to wait out the storm and hope the racing currents subside. But if your behavior becomes unbearable or dangerous- if you have suicidal thoughts or become increasingly belligerent, for example- you or someone else your behalf can seek medical intervention in one or more of the following forms:
· Hospitalizacion: When you pose a threat to yourself or others or need the safety and retreat that hospitalization provides.
· Intensive outpatient therapy: allows you to focus on getting well by day and return home in the evening.
· Medication: To lift the depression or quell the mania.
· Therapy: to immediately address destructive thoughts or behaviors.


Reacting can extinguish the flames, but it can also leave you and those around you burnet out, in your weakened state, you are more susceptible to fire-ups. And if your behavior during the episode hurt you your loved ones, their frustration or bitterness can compound the stress you already bear.

Source: Bipolar Disorder, candida Fink, MD, Joe Kraynak

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So, Doc, What´s the Prognosis?

The choice between a negative or positive prognosis is up to you, doctor, and your family and friends. If you accept the diagnosis, can discover an effective medicine or combination of medicines, and if your family and friends you and pitch in your support you, the prognosis is very positive indeed. On the other hand, if you try to ignore the problem, it will likely get worst.

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