Daily Archives: December 13, 2014

My friend Dyane posted about her experience with some bad news and how it triggered her into manicky behavior. I love this post. I think she coped very well. She had really good insight and minimized the damage that could have occurred. Brava Dyane! She spoke of her psychiatrist saying that next time she experiences a trigger she should take an extra 25 mg of Seroquel, which not only calms one down, it also increases your Norepinephrine levels, doubly good for someone in this sort of a crisis moment. I’m going to take 25 mg of Seroquel when I am triggered as well. It’s better than sending people messages upon messages  showing them how out of control I can be.I so relate to your post. My last tigger, haha trigger was the email that my Snapchat account was hacked into. Totally lost it, thinking about what kinds of messages may have been sent, what would happen, I was going to lose my friends,,, etc. etc. My brain went on a rampage which I couldn’t stop. Until a friend gave me a wake up call. But of course, who wants to have anything to do with someone who loses it because their account got hacked… Of course people want sane friends. Anyway, there’s always tomorrow and you get a chance to react to triggers in a better and constructive way. The chagrin and embarrassment and depression, because you reacted like a crazy person, //:after the episode is also awful and waking up feeling deadened… ugh… I think that is because when we are up, anxious, minds racing, it is due to an excess of neurotransmitters, and when we crash, it is because the neurotransmitter levels have bottomed out and our brains are in withdrawal. Isn’t it marvelous? I wonder why we had to be the ones. Pretty awful. To control the organ with the organ that is freaking out, namely the brain, not an easy thing to do. But we try and we learn we cope as best as we can. And Lithium and Seroquel are definitely our allies in this fight.

From: http://www.mdjunction.com/forums/bipolars-only-discussions/general-support/10087928-bipolar-gets-worse-with-age

Sarah Troy writes:

I am not a doctor. I have bipolar disorder. My responses are based on my own experience, reading and research.

QUESTION: “I know bipolars begin to experience cognitive damage with each untreated manic episode but do BPs on medication also experience this cognitive damage?”

Yes. Bipolar is a progressive, organic brain disease.

Bipolar is a major mental disease (or disorder). Research on the major mental disorders, such a bipolar, schizophrenia, major depression, and Alzheimer’s disease, shows: A) Deterioration of the brain occurs slowly over the lifespan in each of these disorders. B.) This deterioration is both structural and functional. C) There are differences between how the brain looks in each of these disorders. In other words, the brain of a bipolar has structural and functional deterioration that is different from the brain of a major depressive disorder. D) In each of these disorders, we know that active phases of the disease, or “episodes,” accelerates brain deterioration.

In bipolar, the “episode” used as the marker for brain deterioration is the hypomanic or manic episode. So, one thing observed in bipolars is that as they age (due to the underlying organic deterioration) “episodes” of hypomania or mania gradually become more intense and frequent, with a fewer number of years between episodes. This pattern of deterioration occurs in all bipolars, whether they are un-medicated, under-medicated, or medicated.

There is simply no “cure” for bipolar.

Does medication slow the progressive nature of the disease? Yes, because effective treatments (medications) for bipolar decrease the intensity or frequency of hypomania or mania, or increase the number of years between episodes.

Therefore, a bipolar who is effectively (adequately) medicated will experience less brain deterioration over time than a bipolar who is under-medicated or un-medicated.

Do we know more about lithium than other bipolar meds? Yes. Because lithium has been studied the longest, we know more about it than any other bipolar medication. Research shows effective treatment with lithium can, in some people, help the brain to heal the damage done by “episodes.” Can other bipolar meds do this? We just don’t know. More research is needed.

How much of a difference is there between the brains of effectively (adequately) medicated bipolars and the brains of un-medicated or under-medicated bipolars? A lot. It has been established for a while that the brains of untreated Schizophrenics deteriorate similarly to the brains of Alzheimer patients over time. Now, the newer research is showing that the brains of untreated bipolars deteriorate like the brains of untreated schizophrenics over time. Hence, the brains of untreated bipolars have been compared to the brains of Alzheimer’s patients over time.

http://www.bipolar-lives.com/ bipolar-brain-imaging.html – Accelerated shrinking of grey matter of brain

http://www.pendulum.org/ disease.htm#enlargedventricles - Disease process of Bipolar and Schizophrenia

http://www.amenclinics.com/ brain-science/spect-image-gallery/spect-atlas/images-of- bipolar-disorder-and- schizophrenia/ – Images of Bipolar disorder and Schizophrenia

http://www.loni.ucla.edu/ ~thompson/projects.html – Current neuroscience projects

THE BIPOLAR BRAIN – WHERE AND WHAT HAS GONE WRONG?

VENTRAL STRIATUM — WHAT IT DOES: Helps the brain process rewards. WHAT HAS GONE WRONG: Studies show overactivity and a 30% loss in gray matter in this region, causing people to lose judgment about how certain behaviors, such as overspending or being sexually indiscriminate, will affect their lives.

PREFRONTAL CORTEX — WHAT IT DOES: Parts of the prefrontal cortex regulate emotion and are instrumental in processing rewards and motivation. WHAT HAS GONE WRONG: Studies show a 20% to 40% reduction in gray matter-the result of a loss of the branches that connect neurons.

AMYGDALA — WHAT IT DOES: One of the brain’s emotional centers; helps in the recognition of facial expressions and tones of voice. Neural transmissions increase in response to emotional stimuli. Normally, repeated exposure to the same experiences or images leads to habituation, or reduced response. WHAT HAS GONE WRONG: Habituates slowly to some stimuli, remaining reactive beyond the usual response time.

HIPPOCAMPUS –WHAT IT DOES: One of the brain’s memory centers. One layer of the hippocampus, the subiculum, helps recognize contexts that represent danger or reward. WHAT HAS GONE WRONG: Loss of branches that connect neurons may lead to a constant state of anxiety because the person can no longer identify safe situations.

BRAIN STEM —WHAT IT DOES: The raphe nucleus in the brain stem is home to serotonin cell bodies, which create and disperse the neurotransmitter to different parts of the brain. WHAT HAS GONE WRONG: Bipolar patients have a 40% loss of the serotonin 1a receptor in the raphe, which may contribute to atrophy of neurons and depression.

SOURCE: Wayne Drevets, M.D., National Institute of Mental Health

http://www.mdjunction.com/forums/bipolars-only-discussions/general-support/10087928-bipolar-gets-worse-with-age

So we are in the middle of the Christmas season, and I am holding up fairly well now that classes are over.  I still have things to do next week–doctor visits, etc. before the kids get out of school.  The oldest has already come home from college and is sleeping in, the middle one is taking the ACT this morning, and child number three is going from activity to activity throughout the day today.  I need to grade finals but will likely do that Monday and turn in the grades that day as well.

Got my refills today for various meds.  I tend to wait until the last minute to get them refilled and waited almost too long on my Pristiq, filling it today and taking it as soon as I got home.  None of my meds refill at the same time, so I am always going to the drugstore to get my meds at least once a week.  I’m now taking Pristiq, Klonopin, Ability, Buspar, and Tranzodone,.  Pretty full regimen every day.  But it’s keeping me on a fairly even keel–I’m only pacing some of the time and usually wind up taking a nap in the afternoon unless I have had plenty of caffeine throughout the day.

Tomorrow morning we go watch the middle and youngest ones perform in the church’s annual Christmas presentation–the youngest is singing and the middle one is playing the drums on the big finale. I always look forward to the Christmas program but am even more so this year with them performing.

Did some wrapping this morning with the small one’s help.  She picked out the gift bags, and I bagged up the presents.  Still have plenty more to do, but I cleaned out my closet today of what we had hidden in there.  Now to tackle the storage room where we keep all the kids’ presents and get them wrapped before school is out.

I’ve finished sending Christmas cards–we sent a variety this year because we had to keep going back to the store to buy more as our list grew a little bit this year.  We included pictures of the girls and the newsletter Bob wrote.  I know it’s a bygone tradition, but the older folks in our family that we don’t get to see often always talk about how happy it makes them to get the card with the report on all our activities throughout the year.  So we still send them out every year.

All in all, it’s a calm moment in this season of rushing around to get so many things done.  So I thought I would share it with you.  :)  Merry Christmas season to one and all.

Fear of loss

Hot, stinging peppers in my chest

Shallow breath

Fear of loss

Terrified

Only fear and worry

Only no

Life please don’t leave me

Laughter, love, where has the sun gone?

Lightness, airiness, come back to me

I don’t want to live here in this dungeon

It’s dank, cold, frightening

Help me

Help me out of here

I belong in the sun with crystal waters running

With the sounds of waves crashing on white beaches

Take the weight off my chest and let me breathe

Let me out of the dungeon

Evaporate