what is rapid cycling bipolar disorder
ultra rapid cycling and ultradian that's
what I'm going to be talking about today
I'm dr. Tracy marks a psychiatrist and I
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based on several viewer questions and
for more on what bipolar disorder is
watch the video that I have in the
corner and in the description on
defining bipolar but in general
bipolar disorder is a mood disorder
where you have episodes of depression
and mania and each of those episodes
lasts a certain amount of time two weeks
for depression one week for mania and
four days for hypomania rapid cycling
bipolar disorder is thought to happen
about ten to fifteen percent of people
with bipolar disorder and tends to be
more common with bipolar two than
bipolar one rapid cycling is a course
specifier it's not a separate diagnosis
instead it's a description add it to the
end of the diagnosis to further explain
how often you have episodes so the rapid
cycling specifier is added if you have
four or more episodes of either
depression mania or hypomania in a year
and if this is the case then your your
diagnosis would be bipolar one or two
with rapid cycling ultra rapid cycling
is not an official term in our
diagnostic manual it's a term that
researchers have coined and used to give
an even more detailed description of how
the illness plays out people will
usually say ultra rapid cycling when a
person has mood switches each month an
ultra ultra rapid cycling also called
ultradian is when a person has mood
cycles lasting a day we use the dsm-5 to
define and diagnose illnesses if the
shortest episode that you can have
according to the DSM is four days for
hypomania then how can someone cycle in
a day and it really be considered
ultradian well that's why this isn't an
official diagnostic distinction and how
it's used is still controversial it's
important to tell the difference but
shifting emotions and shifting a
complete mood state your mood is how you
feel emotionally your mood state such as
depression or mania refers to a group of
symptoms that include your activity
level your sleep your motivation etc
with a depressed state you tend to be
slowed down in many ways and with mania
you tend to be sped up in many ways so
with rapid cycling you're going from
sped up to slowed and back and forth and
that's not the same thing as switching
from crying to laughing over the course
of a day this would be an emotional
change only and not necessarily a mood
state change we would call that
emotionally labile an emotional lability
is only one aspect of bipolar disorder
there's more to it than shifting your
emotions all the time emotional changes
like that can happen with borderline
personality disorder or even post
traumatic stress disorder but let's say
you do have ultra rapid cycling with
true switching of mood states that
occurs monthly why would this happen
there are things that can destabilize
your bipolar disorder and make you have
state switches more frequently some of
these things are things like a
disruptive circadian rhythm that you
would see with a wacky sleep or eating
schedule an example of this would be
nearly reversing your day/night schedule
to where you're sleeping super late in a
day and then hardly sleeping much during
regular night hours people with bipolar
disorder are very sensitive to biologic
rhythms and getting off-track with some
of these basic routines can trigger a
relapse of an episode or cost them to
switch back and forth working night
shifts can make this happen other causes
are brain injuries and by the way this
doesn't have to be the kind of head
injury like a gunshot wound or falling
from a
for losing consciousness the brain is
very soft like the consistency of
room-temperature butter and your skull
protects it but it can still get knocked
around hit you could have a concussion
and you can recover from this kind of
head trauma but it can you can still get
mood changes and you can even see this
kind of brain injury with mood changes
with a stroke substance use even alcohol
can cause switching other medical
illnesses like thyroid dysfunction or
multiple sclerosis taking
antidepressants the jury's still out on
the usefulness of antidepressants for
bipolar disorder but since some studies
have shown that antidepressants can
cause switching in some people if you
have rapid cycling symptoms then you
should avoid taking or using
antidepressants and it may be that the
best treatment for you is a combination
of mood stabilizers rather than one mood
stabilizer alone
that's bipolar disorder with rapid
cycling I did a video comparing rapid
mood shifting with borderline
personality disorder and how it can look
like bipolar disorder in this case I'm
talking about shifting emotions not
complete shifting from a depressive
episode to a manic episode share this
video and spread the knowledge thanks
for watching
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