New bipolar disorder treatments tested

NEW YORK - Scientists are testing seasickness patches and other surprising options in a challenging search for new ways to treat the crushing depression and uncontrolled mania of bipolar disorder.

Also called manic-depression, it's an illness that can rip careers and marriages apart and drive people to suicide. And it's so complex and mysterious that researchers haven't developed a medication specifically for it since lithium, more than half a century ago.

Yet bipolar appears in various forms and severity in about 1 in every 25 American adults at some point in their lives, according to a major study published in May.

Current medicines help, but often fall short.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070902/ap_on_he_me/treating_bipolar
As someone who has at LEAST one bipolar family member (if not more) I hope with all my heart that they can find a really good treatment for this terrible mental illness. I am currently getting a first hand lesson on how this disease can affect more than just the individual who is sick....

:(

Bipolarism, like depression, is just now being understood at a molecular level. A lot of the medications availer to treat bipolarism aren't well developed and have a *lot* of nasty side effects--huge weight gain, loss of sexual appetite, and so on. It sucks.

Smoking pot has helped me tremendously, but I also know for some it exasperates swings.

Essentially, a lot more research is needed before next gen drugs can be developed...but I'm crossing my fingers that they're helpful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_believed_to_have_been_affected_by_bipolar_disorder

K and R

it's hard to argue she's not after some of the things she did earlier this year. (The head shaving was what convinced me she was BP.)

I feel sorry for anyone with that disorder, but I feel more sorry for any family member with the role of being a care provider to someone with manic-depression.

My brother won't take meds for the same reason. He loves those highs and says it is worth suffering the lows to get the highs. I am the family member who has been designated to deal with him and I can tell you the suicide rate is probably higher among the care-givers, than the afflicted. There are days....................well you get the pic.

:banghead:

its believed that my sister is bipolar and she is right now busy making everyone's life around her miserable because she won't acknowledge it (she was briefly committed) and blames others for her issues..I haven't even talked to her for a couple of weeks in order to preserve MY mental health!x(

they love their manic episodes and fear losing them. Their manic episodes are almost like drug highs for them.

I hope and pray every day for more effective treatments to come through.

Thanks for the info, turtlensue. :)

My wife is bipolar and she takes Depakote which is around 300 a m onth without insurance!

:-(

more learned about mental illness, especially by the VA. It seems to me there's a whole host of emotional disorders that originate with the consequences of war. I mean, has there ever been a human being that has survived the unnatural environment of war, and come out of it unscathed...aside from the fortunate officers that never see combat? There must be reams of data on the effects to individuals. Go to any AA/NA meeting and you are bound to find veterans. Does no one see cause and effect? Are there just a slew of damaged embryos being born for the sole purpose of taking anti-psychotics or filling up our prisons? Maybe they're all evil..or lazy, ignorant Americans.