Bipolar disorder begins with a depressive state in more than half of patients, which requires careful analysis to exclude symptomatic similar ailments.
Symptoms of bipolar depression
The clinical picture of bipolar depression observed retardation, severe drowsiness, and in the time, such as when the recurrence (recurrent, severe) depression may occur expressed vegetative symptoms (inner tension, headache, heaviness in the chest, lack of appetite, sleep disturbances). With BD (bipolar depression), patients are inhibited rather than agitated. A depressive episode can be characterized by such a symptom as increased appetite. Both sexes are equally susceptible to the disease: men and women, they have DB at a much earlier age than recurrent. Women suffer from recurrent depression twice as often as men. Manic-depressive psychosis can combine in the most bizarre way seemingly diametrically opposite symptoms.
However, with all this, the diagnosis of the symptoms of bipolar depression is difficult due to the presence of mixed manifestations with it, which are present in other mental pathologies. It is even more difficult to distinguish bipolar depression from unipolar depression , and this (differential diagnosis) implies significantly different treatment for these two diseases. Even if the patient feels great against the background of treatment, proper internal monitoring by the doctor is necessary , since the patient himself simply does not notice many of the symptoms . Manic-depressive psychosis is quite insidious.
In bipolar depression (BD), it is the depressive periods that predominate (about six months a year), long, turning into chronic ones. However, a depressive episode can have significant variability, as well as the entire clinical picture of bipolar depression, so the diagnosis of bipolar disorder can be a certain difficulty for an inexperienced doctor.
Treating bipolar depression
It is very important to treat long-range bipolar disorder with an eye to the long-term prognosis of the underlying disorder. It is depression that requires the main attention from the attending physician, since the appointment of antidepressant drugs should be carried out especially individually, with significant differences and characteristics.
New drugs (for example, paroxetine and those close to it in action) minimize the unexpected transition to manic state (MS) from overcome bipolar affective disorder, which is possible with other drugs . Many studies support this fact. When taking paroxetine, MS can occur in only 3% of cases (in practice , much less often), when taking other drugs – in half of the observations, if all the symptoms of bipolar depression are analyzed.