the moonpanda theory

[adel_ezz]

I had to call it this name, as this opinion i read it for the 1st time in a post of moonpanda. She said:

>>> the academia see bipolar disorder as being on a spectrum spreading from unipolar depression to classic manic depression, with variants falling everywhere in-between.""

now we know that numbers say fall on the so-called real line like there is a definite location for the number 2 and one for 3 , one for 1000 etc... like they are seated in their place by the so-called order property, a property of the real numbers.

Now as she said the unipolarly depressed those are the "lucky" ones in my view whereas an AD makes them euthymic. Once they stop taking the AD's they fall back into their previous location i.e. back to depression.

What about the bipolars, according to her there must be "good" bipolars and bad ones, i.e. those on the line joining the two extreme points depression and mania points but most probably with a tendency nearer to one of the two sides let it be the manic side, being the dangerous in the pdocs view.

But since every patient must be seated already in a definite location on the above line (depression mania line), how come the bipolar alternates between the 2 points.

a more plausible assumption is that a BP is an unstable phenomenon or say more liable to become unstable under the drugs, so AP's bring them down fast and AD's bring them high also fast so they need an MS to regulate them.

But where were they before taking the drugs ? the majority say in depression. And my modest view that all the psych illness begin with depression, whether Panic attack or GAD and all of them benefit from AD's except the so-called bipolars. No non-depressed person consult a pdoc, for what purpose ? usually it's depression which sends him to pdocs, or some form of attack that leaves him depressed. All BP2 tell you it started with a depression. Again the doctors tell you that any mania if left unattended will die out, but it's the danger of being left unattended for a period, so it's better to kill it right away.

Now suppose a BP patient is not given anything and by definition kept alternating between the 2 extreme points, where does he lie on the line spectrum at the onset of the disease??      

[moonpanda]

There are some sites that summarize and explain this stuff better than I can right now that you might find helpful/ interesting:

http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/02_diagnosis.html#soft
This even has its own graph showing the spectrum and explaining the concept.

This comes from the home site, http://www.psycheducation.org/ , which has many interesting information about bipolarity, specifically BPII. It's a decent read and it puts things in an interesting perspective. I would also recommend reading the page on mixed states and viewing them as "waves" :

http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/Waves.htm

[run4you]

Excellent example :)

I love numbers... makes perfect sense that way!

[Xila31]

Maybe think of it like diabetes. Diabetes checks your hemoglobin A1c which tests for average levels of glucose in your blood every 3 months.

Hypoglycemic 4.7% and down
Normal is 4.8%-5.6%
Pre-Diabetes is 5.7%-6.5%
Diabetes is 6.6% and up.

I've seen people with A1c results at high as 17%, which is pretty dangerous.

Now, people with bipolar don't have a test like an A1c, but I would say that if A1c glucose levels = bipolar mood levels (with smaller numbers equalling depression and higher numbers mania) it would look like this:

Depression 4.7% and down
Normal 5.0%-5.6%
Cyclothymic 5.7%-6.0%
Bipolar II 6.1%-7.0%
Bipolar I 7.1% and up

I think just like people with diabetes who take too much insulin can have sever hypoglycemic episodes, it is the same with people and bipolar taking an AD, except instead of hypoglycemia we get mania. When people with just depression take an AD it bumps them up into that normal range.

Anyway, I just thought maybe thinking of it at a different angle would help.

[run4you]

*widely, not wildly

:)

[run4you]

From what my last psychiatrist said... the spectrum was like this:

unipolar depression
to
high mania and severe depression.

So BP2 would fall somewhere in the middle, if that makes sense.

So the spectrum is more of a 'doesn't fluctuate moods' to 'mood fluctuates wildly', not a depressed to manic spectrum.

[jazminealthia]

There are a bunch of diagnoses on that scale, and each one has different diagnostic criteria.

I was diagnosed as Bipolar II, which could be seen as just another point on that scale. I was on an anti-depressant and a mood stabalizer and it was horrible.

The scale you're talking about would really depend on the exact symptoms. My symptoms, even when they went back to being untreated, wouldn't be the same as someone with major depressive disorder or someone who was just straight Bipolar I.

So really I'm not sure about this theory, I suppose. But that's just my two cents.

[Xila31]

I can only speak for myself on this. Where was I before being diagnosed? Exactly where I am right now except without lithium. Up until last year I was still a rapid cycler, although not cycling as fast as I am since last May, which is when things got bad. I had possible psychotic episodes multiple times in my life starting in childhood. I was never treated or medicated except for 2-3 months of therapy in 1991, a little grief counseling after my mom died in 1992, and 2 weeks on Abilify in 2006 which caused me to have a bad reaction to it. I never took an AD.