BIPOLAR DISORDER. FROM MANIA TO DEPRESSION AND FROM DEPRESSION TO MANIA. WARNING SYMPTOMS.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), this pathology is suffered by approximately 60 million people worldwide and consists of a mood disorder that can evolve from depression to mania and from mania to depression. It usually emerges in both men and women, from the age of 25 upwards.

MANIC STAGE.

The cases that begin with mania present the following symptoms:

• Extreme euphoria without an apparent cause, that can last anywhere from days to weeks.

• Verbiage or speech acceleration.

• Irritation of minimum stimuli.

• Insomnia with nocturnal hyperactivity.

• Starting jobs but never finishing them.

• Racing thoughts. They jump from one idea to the next without their being a connection in between them.

• Delirious or grandiose ideas. They believe themselves to be something they are not.

• Visual or auditory hallucinations.

• Extreme sociability. They talk to everybody with no limit, something that they had never done previously.

• Sexual disinhibitions, beginning multiple high-risk sexual relationships.

• Exorbitant spending, which could lead to theirs and their families’ bankruptcy.

• Tendency to consume drugs and alcohol.

The patient in this phase has to hospitalized urgently, and if does not taken place, then the patient will progress onto the second stage, depression.

DEPRESSIVE STAGE

These are the symptoms present when this pathology begins in the depressive stage or has evolved to it from the manic stage.

• Slowing of speech, movements and thoughts.

• Extreme tiredness, that makes them wish that they were constantly in bed.

• Changes in appetite and weight.

• Feelings of guilt, they feel as though they are a hindrance, that they always do everything wrong, that it is their fault that they are the way they are.

• They lose the desire to live.

• Tendency to suicide.

If the patient begins in this stage, they will end up evolving into mania. Urgent hospitalisation is required.

HYPOMANIA

This is a mild form of mania with more moderate symptoms that has to always be treated, although hospitalization is not needed.

Bipolar disorder is a chronic pathology that if diagnosed early and with treatment, could allow patients to live a normal life. Awareness of its symptoms will allow us to do so.