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Monday, October 31, 2011

Mixed and Rapid Cycling in Bipolar Disorder


 Unstable mood and energy marks the life of a person with Bipolar Disorder.  People with such instability have big changes in their mood, or energy, or creativity over periods of time.  They may have easy crying.  They may have extreme episodes of anger.  They can sometimes have inappropriate laughing too loudly or too much.    
Mixed states include only phases of full manic and full depressive cycles as short as 4 days.  
 Other combinations of depression and hypomania, or mania exist but not the two full phases together.  And it is possible to have cycles shorter than 4 days.
 For a lot of people, there are no phases of normal functioning; instead, many people have only symptoms, varying from one kind to another.
Symptoms vary separately from one another, and at different durations
 Bipolar disorder has phases lasting at least 4 days shorter than that, and it does not meet the official diagnosis. But the shorter versions are seen so often they have their own names.
Many people with Bipolar II do not have the intervals, in between periods of having symptoms that are often spoken about Bipolar I disorder. and Bipolar II.    
 A rapid cycling of the individual symptoms, at different rates, can create a varying pattern of nearly continuous symptoms.  Instead of having periodic episodes, the person has almost constantly shifting symptom phases that blend into one another.
  Many people have rapid cycling and mixed states due to medication for others it is the natural course of the disease.  Mixed states and rapid cycling are hard to treat but treatment is available and with good prognosis in some cases.

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