Surviving John

For years, psychiatrists and medical professionals have said that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are two very distinct mental illnesses. This idea came from a world-renowned German psychiatrist named Emil Kraepelin. Eric Kraepelin has said that bipolar disease and schizophrenia are two very different mental disorders. Up until today, the separation of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is still being practiced by psychiatrists.

Bipolar and Schizophrenia: Are Both Disorders the Same?
However, you have to consider that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is very difficult to distinguish from each other. Both have the same signs and symptoms and psychiatrist often makes mistakes when diagnosing a patient with one of the disorders.

Today, there are certain methods developed to clearly distinguish both diseases. Psychiatrists and brain specialists all over the world have determined that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have distinct signs and symptoms where they can base their diagnosis from.

The first thing you have to consider is that patients with bipolar disorder can experience a schizophrenia-like delusions and hallucinations. However, bipolar disorder has a chronic form of the illness. However, it is still very difficult to distinguish both diseases from one another.

Schizophrenia disorder has been found that it also contains signs and symptoms of bipolar disorder, which includes depressive episodes and sometimes manic episodes. As you can see, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is very hard to distinguish from one another. In fact, there have been several cases where psychiatrists and specialists have made a mistake in diagnosing their patients. There are some cases where severe schizophrenia disorders have the same signs and symptoms of bipolar disorders and even the same frequency of manic and depressive episodes. Further studies and research have found that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is a form of genetic illness. So, this means that finding out about the genetics of the person, psychiatrists and brain specialists can find a significant distinction of both disorders. Today, there are now available treatments for both disorders that can effectively help you in managing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The treatment for both disorders can be in a form of psychotherapy and is usually combined with medications that can change the brain’s biochemistry. More about Bipolar and Schizophrenia.

Bipolar Disease is a mood disorder where the sufferers will experience bouts of serious depression and high mania. The disordered moods of the patient occur in cyclic patterns. Their moods will swing from an extremely high euphoria combined with some irritation to being hopeless and extremely sad. Between these two sides of mood swings, the person will feel completely normal and will not show any signs of suffering from erratic moods.

These periods of normal behavior only occur between bouts of erratic mood swings. This is a characteristic of Bipolar Disease. While we may view the person who has Bipolar Disorder as being mentally disturbed or somewhat crazy, the symptoms of the disease are very severe and in many cases they can be life threatening. People who are afflicted with Bipolar Disease find it disruptive and distressing to their lives.

As Bipolar Disorder has affected many well known artists, writers and musicians the illness, and its effects on the lives of its sufferers, has been trivialized. There are so many creatively talented people who live with Bipolar Disorder, that this disease is considered to be beneficial to the creativity. Therefore it is not taken very seriously.

Bipolar Disease which affect about 1% of adults during their life is a very serious mood disorder. The symptoms usually begin to appear during the teen years and early adulthood. They can reoccur throughout the personís life. The effects of Bipolar Disease can include alcohol abuse, drug abuse, unemployment and marital break-ups resulting in the deterioration of the quality of one’s life.

The symptoms of Bipolar Disease include both the depression symptoms and the manic depression symptoms. The depression symptoms are sadness, lack of interest in daily life activities, low self esteem, excessive sleep, difficulty focusing, insomnia, inability to concentrate, feeling worthless, thoughts of death or suicide, changes in appetite, aches and pains.

The manic symptoms are boundless energy, grandiose ideas, irrational behavior, feelings of self importance, difficulty concentrating, no sense of self preservation, talking very fast, fast developing ideas, excessive money spending, long periods without sleep, alcohol and drug abuse, loss of self control, loss of good judgment and a desire to engage in various risky activities without considering the consequences.

Since Bipolar disorder is a very serious and life threatening condition it should be treated as soon as possible. Should Bipolar disorder be left untreated it could lead to suicide. Therefore to prevent such a tragic event, medical treatment, which is a mixture of medication and therapy, should begin as soon as the disease has been diagnosed. Stop Bipolar Disease before it destroys your life.