bipolar diagnosis information

So you have just been old you have bipolar disorder, maybe bipolar i, or bipolar ii, either way there is a lot to get your head around. The first thing that will probably happen is you will start taking medication. While this is really important to becoming well, there are other things you could be doing. Unfortunatley as with most western medicine assisance doesn't go much further than a prescription and maybe a therapy recommendation. If you look around you will find literally hundreds of ideas, all very overwhelming and expensive to try and embark on a search to find the ones that work best for you and bipolar. We all know the obvious ones

Exercise
Nutrition
Massage
Therapry

but there are hundreds of different therapies that you can try to make living with bipolar disorder easier. You may have been unwell for a long time before you recieved your bipolar diagnosis and it can be really hard to get it together and manage your day to day living when you are spaced out on new medications, the key is patience. It wont change in a few weeks but gradually as chemicals in your brain settle down you will begin to regain health. However if you don't change your lifestyle you guessed it you will become unwell again, you need to become informed read some good books and try and take small steps to making changes in your life that can help you stay welll once the medications are working.

1. Get a notebook and write down questions for your doctor as the pop into your head so when you are at your appointment you can ask.

2. Start a journal to record your feelings and write down things that are upsetting you, you can look back and see how far you have come in only a few months of this.

3. Start a wellness or healthy life style plan, choose one that helps with bipolar disorder or create your own from resources on the internet.

4. Make sure you plan some time away from the illness, go out and try to forget about it even if just for one hour, don't let it consume your life.

5. Try and keep life interesting by doing a bit of everything, don't get to focused on one thing at a time, it is great to have a new hobby and devote all of your time to it but you need to balance things by insuring you still exercise, socialise, eat properly. When this balance becomes out of whack it can cause problems for you bipolar disorder.

6. Meet new people who understand what you are going through and can offer you advice as well as listen without being judgemental. You can do this online from the comfort of your own home, daily strength has a great community, providing support and advice.

7. Set a goal makeit an easy one, clean out the spare room, read a book or walk 20 minutes 2 a week, work a little ach day on achieving your goal, it is very uplifting to be able to achieve something you set out to.

In order to start the diagnosis a complete psychiatric history detailing the symptoms or diagnosis of immediate family members and relatives as well as your past and present psychiatric state. Because bipolar disorder has a strong genetic component the diagnosis may be helped by your family history. If there is a family history of depression or bipolar disorder, there's more of a chance you may have it as well. But be careful that you are not just stamped with the label if someone else in your family has the disorder.

The following is a list f illness's that can mimic bipolar diserder an complete physical exam is required to rule them out.

AIDS, a brain tumor or head injury, diabetes, epilepsy, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, a salt imbalance or thyroid disorder can produce bipolar-like symptoms.

If no physical cause is found for the illness , and if no other psychiatric disorder better accounts for symptoms, if the current symptoms have occured for a duration that has caused significant impairment in functioning, a patient may then be diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

It is important to note here that even if there is no previous history of mania or hypomania, the current symptoms must be those of mania or hypomania for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. without a history or presence of hypomania or mania bipolar can not be diagnosed. In that this disorder is characterized by both extremes of mood (mania and depression), where there are just symptoms of depression thenit will be a diagnosis of unipolar depression.