Manic depressive disorder | Bipolar Affective Disorder

Depression can be defined as a state of sadness. Depression is however much more than just feeling a bit sad. Besides extreme sadness there are also physical symptoms that are associated with depression. What are the physical symptoms of depression? Fatigue, inactivity and a lower immunity against sicknesses are some physical symptoms of depression. Others are problems with eating, sleeping, suicide thoughts and unexplained pain. Here we will give a short description of phsyical depression symptoms.

Fatigue

Fatigue is probably the physical symptom that is the most associated with manic depressive disorder. By this we don’t mean tiredness after running or after a fitness training. Fatigue is a state where you don’t have the energy to do anything. Al you want to do is lay in bed and stay there because you feel to tired to get up and even make a cup of coffee. It is associated with loss of energy and no interest in anything around you. The sad thing is that Fatigue leads to more fatigue and eventually even going to the bathroom is too much. This is why the first thing psychologists do in therapy is increase activity.

Headache

Chronic headaches are highly associated with manic depressive disorder. Chronic headaches are defined as headaches that returns 15 days out of the month for at least 3 months. Patients with chronic headaches often see there headache disappear in the same time when their depression is treated.

Sleeping disorders

Sleeping orders is a very important physical symptom of depression. When a person is sleeping too much it is often not notices that this could be a sign of depression. Often patients just think they are tired and they need some more sleep. Sleeping too much is just as bad as sleeping too little and both are an important symptom of depression. Sleeping disorders are often associated with a lack of energy and fatique.

Eating disorders

Eating disorders are also a very important physical sign of depression. Often it is seen that a patient with depression will loose weight or gain weight because the eating patterns are not functioning any more. When a person feels sad he often does not feel hungry and if he feels sad every day he will loose weight. Sometimes eating too much is also an expression of feeling sad as this might be the only thing that relieves the sadness. Eating snacks like chocolate or chips give a nice feeling but after they are finished, the sadness increases as they are not happy with their physical appearance.

Body pain

Body stress and body pain are highly associated with each other. When you work under a lot of stress you often get headaches or pain in the neck. Feeling depressed is some kind of stress to the body and the body will react to this with a sensitivity of unexplained pain. This pain can present itself in the neck joints, lower back, but also internal in your stomach, liver, kidneys. Patients often don’t feel they are taken seriously when a doctor sends them to a psychologist for unexplained pain sensations but very often a psychologist gets more positive results with these patients than a doctor.

In this article is written what are the physical symptoms of bipolar depression. Next to the emotional symptoms of sadness, physical symptoms are very important to notice for a diagnose of depression.

The exact cause of a manic depressive disorder is not entirely clear. Lately there is a lot of research on the causes of manic depression and there is a lot that we do know. There seems to be a genetic link within families and an increasing chance that your offspring will have to deal with the same disorder.

The onset of this disorder usually occurs in the mid twenties. There are some different theories that might explain the development and the early onset of the disease. As mentioned, it seems that manic depression has a genetic link. This means that the chance to get this disorder is bigger if your parents also have this disorder. Researchers don’t know exact how to explain the extreme mood changes that occur with these patients, but it has a lot to do with the brain chemistry not functioning as it is supposed to do.

A genetic link is not enough to explain why some people will get a manic depressive disorder and other don’t. It seems that important life events that create a lot of stress or anxiety are important in the development. This is also called the threshold theory. Some people inherit a very high threshold and this means they need a lot of stress and bad things in their life’s to get manic depressed. Others will have a very low threshold and they only need a few bad life events to develop a manic depressive disorder.

So what are life events? A bad life event is not losing your football match on high school. Important life events that could trigger a depression are often: when one of your parents dies, when you are confronted with a lot of failure in your life, a traumatic accident, getting handicapped, abuse, rape and more very bad things you don’t want to confront. The threshold and life event theory does not explain everything as it is a very simple way to explain how it works. This theory is also used to explain why some smokers develop cancer and others don’t. In short, it is a very common theory.

Now let’s explain a little more on brain chemistry and the causes of manic depression/ bipolar syndrome, as this sounds a bit like physics to some people. The brain is a very organized and complex organ and one of the most important one of our body as we can not live without it. The organization of the brain is controlled by many different things. Some we don’t understand exactly and some we do. Into the brain you can find a lot of small hormones that will influence your behavior. You could compare this to females getting there period (no offense). In this time a month, the mood and behavior of a female can change a little. These hormones in the brain are called neurotransmitters. The best known are: Dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline and many more. Maybe you heard of some of these hormones as they are very common to influence some mayor disorders or diseases. Serotonin is mostly associated with sleeping disorders and Dopamine is associated with dementia and Parkinson disease.

Most of the cells in your body will react when some hormones reach their cells. With other words; they have a standard job to do when these hormones reach the cell. A possible cause of manic depression is that cells in the brain don’t do their standard job anymore when these hormones reach the cell. They will overreact or sometimes do nothing. This imbalance of how they are reacting could be a explanation of the extreme mood changes. Off course this explanation is very basis as it is more complex.

When you had some serious mood swings, there is a chance that your doctor will diagnose a bipolar of manic depressive disorder. How many mood swings you had and how fast the cycle between the mood changes are is a good indication of the severity of the disorder. Just like depression, every cycle of depression and in this case also mania, will increase the chance of a new cycle.

In this article we explained some causes of manic depression and how they influence the development of the disease. The best known causes are the threshold theory combined with the life events theory. Another theory is the brain chemistry theory.

A manic depressive disorder is also called a bipolar affective disorder. With the manic depressive disorder there is a strong mood change within the extremes. Sometimes you feel great, in fact you feel more than great. At the other time you feel really sad and depressed. The period when you feel great is called mania or hypomania. Someone who has hypomania is extremely happy but could also get mad very rapidly. They don’t take possible consequences of their behavior in account. They have the feeling they can do everything.

The difference between mania and hypomania is that people with mania also have social and relational problems and could even be psychotic. This does not apply on people with hypomania.

The period when someone feels very sad and depressed is called depression. Between these extreme mood changes someone will feel quite normally and will also function quite normally. There are personal differences what weights the most in a manic depressive disorder. Some people will have more cycles of depression than (hypo)mania and other will feel more (hypo)mania than depressed. However, very often there is a recognizable pattern within a person who has bipolar affective disorder.

The mood changes are a huge drawback in functioning of daily life. Also in the period between mania and depression someone feels dis comfortable with his behavior as he is uncertain when the behavior will come back. He could also feel ashamed what he had done in the period of mania.

Does it pass by?
The disorder itself will not go away by itself. However there are medicine which can help you to keep the mood stable and prevent new cycles of depression or mania. Mood stabilizers like lithium are very popular to keep the mood stable. The first onset of manic depressive disorder is between 15 and 25 years old. One episode will endure approximately 3 to 6 months. A period of mania is often shorter than a period of depression. There is a very big difference between persons how they feel. Most of the people with this disorder will feel normal 6 months a year. If someone recovers depends on what he has done in the periods of onset. Often relationships are broken of someone will get unfit to work.

Important life events (negative but also positive) will influence first episodes more than  later episodes. Alcohol abuse and smoking weed and hasjies can strenghten the effect of manic depressive disorder. It also counts on what age is the first onset period. The younger you are, the more unfavorable the prospects are.

Of all the adult grown ups to 65 years old, 1-2% will get a manic depressive disorder and 0.5-1% will get the disorder this year.