Bipolar Disorder Symptoms – How To Find Them

Bipolar disorder symptoms once detected should be addressed immediately. This is because some of these symptoms are so abnormal and severe that, without proper psychiatric help, they are enough to ruin a person’s career, school life or general social interactions.

Mood episodes of extreme excitement to extreme depression and unusual irritability going far beyond the normal and rational boundaries are extremely common.  A person with this condition might also experience very fast, racing thoughts and highly unstable swings of emotions. Delusions and hallucinations might occur as well.

A patient suffering from bipolar disorder might display the following symptoms:

• Severe mood changes with long periods of overly happy moods;


• Intense irritability over something or someone beyond the normal and rational range;


• Irrational impulses like shopping sprees, impulsive sex, and impulsive business investments;


• Lack of sleep for weeks because of racing thoughts;


• Significant twisting of reality;


• Suicidal tendencies that are frequent because of uncontrollable depression;


• Unusually high levels of energy while feeling sad, lonely and hopeless.

This disorder negatively affects relationships, families, friendships, schoolwork and jobs, not to mention the person’s ability to lead a normal life. As the signs and symptoms of this sickness become more prevalent, public awareness is increasing too. It is not necessarily easy to recognize or understand the behaviours or symptoms of bipolar disorder, and it is only a medical professional who can determine if a person suffers from it.

How is the illness diagnosed?
Diagnosis is performed through a series of laboratory, physical and psychological tests. A psychiatrist is usually the best person to determine if a person indeed has this disorder and what treatment plan is necessary. Family members, friends and spouse are often interviewed after running the series of tests to create the whole historical profile of the patient.

Further, this disorder must be differentiated from unipolar depression, in which there is no manic mood swing and instead just depression. Usually two weeks is given as an observational period to observe these symptoms and reactions to treatment.

How then is the condition treated?

Combining psychotherapy and medicinal intake treatments is usually the best solution to treat this disorder since no cure has been discovered yet. Both medication and psychotherapy are part of a long-term treatment plan since this is a lifelong condition.

Not all patients react the same way with a given medicine plan, so what the doctor does is change it often to determine what combination will work best. The doctor uses a daily life chart to monitor the effects the treatment may have on the patient. As the behaviour changes, the doctor may add or reduce some medications to lessen the bipolar disorder symptoms.