Bipolar Schizophrenia

Is there such a thing as bipolar schizophrenia? Before we answer that question, let us take a look at what medical research has thrown up over the last few years.

For many years, medical experts have always classified bipolar disorder and schizophrenia as two distinct mental disorders. In fact, many psychiatrists still have the practice of separating bipolar disorder and schizophrenia even up to today.

However, to a person on the street, when you consider the symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, the distinctions are blurred and it is indeed very difficult to tell the differences from one another. Even psychiatrists often misdiagnose.

The diagnosis of bipolar disorder, like many other medical condition, involves systematically ruling out other conditions that can imitate it. There are certainly many conditions that can look a bit or a alot like bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder describes patterns of abnormal and servere mood swings, ranging from disabling depression to mania while schizophrenia covers a broad range of disorders that are a combination of psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions and thought disorganization.

Win Bipolar Disability Benefits

In both cases, patients can display the lack of apathy and motivation. There is even an illness known as schizoaffective disorder where the patient has mood swings episodes that fall under the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and symptoms of schizophrenia that persists after the mood episode is over.

A recent study has found the link between bipolar and schizophrenia. If schizophrenia has been running in a family, there is a high possibility that bipolar disorder will run in there too. This suggests that both disorders may be caused by the same genes.

This means that psychiatrists should not be viewing these disorders separately anymore. While bipolar schizophrenia may still exist as separate entities, it goes to show that it is still best to leave the diagnosis to the professionals.

Bipolar Disorder Causes – Are You At Risks?

Bipolar disorder causes are said to have come from many sources. However, not all is true. One of the main causes of this mental illness that we could verify is the genes. There has been a strong link between the illness and the genes.

In fact, it has been found that the closer you are related to the person who has the disorder, the more likely you are to develop it. That also means that your chance of developing it decreases the more distantly related you are.

However, it does not mean that you will necessarily develop the disorder if someone in the family has it. While it will most likely run in the family, it can also happen in people without any family history. It appears that genetic can only offer part of the answer.

Scientists have pinned down the genes causing bipolar disorder to chromosomes 22 and 13. If you really want to know, schizophrenia is also attributed to the same genes. Presently, there is no tests that can tell who will or who will not develop bipolar.

That said, if you believe you have a higher risk for developing bipolar, you should make efforts to keep away from drugs, alcohol and undue stress. This is because other factors like environment, drugs and stress can also come into the picture.

Drugs, for example, have been known to cause symptoms of bipolar disorder. Stimulants can set off a manic episode while drugs like cocaine can trigger off mania or even depression. Studies have shown that people who are already predisposed to such disorder may trigger off these psychotic symptoms unknowingly.

Now that you know what are some likely bipolar disorder causes, it would do you alot of good to know more about bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Disorder Manic Phase

Psychosis is never too far away from you when you are suffering from bipolar disorder. You will do well to be on the lookout for such symptoms that come about when you are in the severe depressive phase of your manic-depressive illness. Soon enough, you own delusions can take you over completely, but just long enough for the mania to see in.

You may experience symptoms of all kinds of false beliefs or hallucinations when you are suffering from bipolar disorder. Certain false sensory perceptions seem so real to you and the real people around you tend to fade into the woodwork. Such things happen often in the disease, whether you are manic or depressive.

Phobia and obsessions are about two of the most common symptoms of the depressive state of bipolar disorder. In the manic phase of the conditions, you may instead feel powerfully yet incongruously happy. You may not notice this though, but the person next to you should notice it enough to try and get you so see a doctor in a hurry.

The problem with bipolar disorder is that many of the symptoms do not give you a lot of time or space for self-analysis in the right sense. Instead you may catch yourself beating down upon yourself, or on the other hand feeling self-important in an unreasonable way. That is why you are better off with a good friend around you who knows what to do when that happens.

There is nothing strange about being irritable when you are suffering from bipolar disorder. As a matter of fact, it happens often when you are suffering in the manic phase of the condition such that you have trouble being around people. Actually, people will have trouble being around you because of your ill temper.

Whether you are suffering from obsession and unreasonable enthusiasm in the manic phase of bipolar disorder, or you are suffering melancholy and dejection in the depressive state of it, you are not likely to get a lot of sleep. In the first instance, you are too excited, and in the latter, you are too worried… unreasonably.

The manic chapters of a manic-depressed individual leave you highly energized basically all of the time. Saying that you will sleep less is an overstatement, a phenomenon that will result from the racing thoughts you are having all of the time. You may not know how to seek help then, but your loved ones had better, when they observe these symptoms.