What is Manic Depression or Bi-Polar Disorder? It is a question that many still cannot answer. Medicine is still trying to establish exactly what causes this illness and the best form of treatment. I can tell you it can be a very debilitating condition. Unfortunately it isn't very well understood, and sometimes those who suffer from it are thought to be somehow "inventing an illness". It is basically a chemical imbalance in the brain and there are many symptoms, including any of, but not restricted to the following: -
* Restlessness
* Periods of incredible highs
* Periods of incredible lows
* Sometimes just floating somewhere between the highs and lows
* Thoughts of suicide
* Questioning one's own self worth
* Inability to sleep (Insomnia)
* Sudden impulsive actions
* Major mood swings
At one time or another I have been through all of the above and more. I am probably the exception to the "normal". Bi-Polar Disorder is usually diagnosed at a relatively early age or during teenage years. In my case I wasn't diagnosed until I was 38 years old.
Treatment of this illness is usually by medicinal drugs and there are many different ones available. Each one acts on a different way on each individual person and it is a trial and error thing to find a suitable drug for each one's own condition. I have lost count of the number of different medications I have been on since 1989, there are just too many to recall.
Prozac is commonly prescribed, but in my own case I may as well have been chewing jellybeans, it did absolutely nothing for me. I was for a long period on a drug called Parnate, but it was a drug that required a strict diet regime. Certain foods react with Parnate and would cause an immediate rise in blood pressure, with an aneurism a very real possibility. Parnate worked for me for a few years.
I initially started out on the recommended dosage of one tablet in the morning and one at midday. After a while I seemed to get immune to them and I would start to regress. My dosage was increased to two in the morning and one at midday. This continued increase in dosage continued for a number of years until I was taking five tablets each morning and five at midday. That's ten times the normal dosage, a packet of sixty tablets, which should have lasted me a month, I was using in six days.
Finally my doctor changed my medication. I have tried amongst others, Lithium treatment, Eurovox, Luvox, and Avanza. Most didn't work and those that did had such serious side effects, I had to stop taking them. In one case I gained about thirty kilograms of weight in about three months. Once I stopped that medication, I lost all that excess thirty kilograms although I am still what I consider overweight. I am now on a combination of drugs called Endromax, Epilum and Neulactil. It seems to be working and I am leading a reasonably peaceful life, although there are still times when one or more of the symptoms raises its ugly head. At present the biggest problem is an inability to sleep and I take sleeping tablets every night just to get about three hours sleep.
It has been and will continue to be a long journey. An old Chinese proverb says, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
I took that first step in 1989, when I admitted that something was wrong. Before that I made all sorts of excuses, but I refused to admit the obvious, and it was having a detrimental effect on everyone around me.
Since that first step, I have probably covered one hundred miles, the steps are short and the road is long. I still have nine hundred miles to go. However I have some positives on my side. I always have my faith. I have a loving caring wife who has stood beside me all through the darkest times. She is a woman who has never forgotten the words she spoke to me thirty-one years ago, before God, our family and our friends, "For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, till death us do part". I have the love of my children and their families. With all that behind me, I will make it.
I will somehow reach the end of that thousand-mile journey before God calls me home.
©Copyright
Dark Blue Knight
15th January 2005
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