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When someone is diagnosed with Bipolar, there are two types of treatments available. These treatments are called: pharmacological and psychotherapeutic. They usually will work so long as the person is following doctor’s orders.

Pharmacological Therapy

This type of therapy refers to medicinal use. They are used to control outbursts and mood swings that are caused by mania and depression. Some medicines can also help in controlling severe anxiety attacks. Treatment in this area are divided into five separate categories.

1. Anti-anxiety medicine and sedatives
Sedatives are several different types. They usually provide relief to the individual with bipolar. It’s used to give the patient the right amount of sleep he needs to get a night’s rest. It can also be used to relieve trepidation and it helps in controlling manic episodes. Hypnotics, tranquilizers, anxiolytics and benzoduazepines are several well known medications given to patients.

2. Antidepressants
These are widely prescribed to people who have bipolar disorder. There are several different types of antidepressants including:

• Atypical antidepressants is one example that is not chemically related to other antidepressant medication. Medicines fitting in this category are: Wellbutrin, Desyrel and Rameron.
• Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors or rather known as MAOIs help to disease the symptoms. These category includes: Manerix, Marplan, Nardil and Parnate.
• Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRis include Celexa, Paxil, Lexapro, Prozac, Luvox and Zoloft. These help concentrate on a neurotransmitter in the brain.
• Selective Serotonin – Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors help patient’s who suffer from many of the symptoms that come with bipolar disorder. These do include: Cymbalta and Effexor.
• Tricyclics antidepressants include: Anafranil, Elavil, Asendin, Norpramin, Aventyl and Adapin.

3. Antipsychotics
This treatment is commonly referred to as neuroleptic drugs. These can be deemed as major tranquilizers because its mainly used to put patients under sedation. There are three antipsychotic drugs that include atypical, typical and dopamine partial agonists. Drugs that fall into this category are: Symbyax and Tetrabenazine.

4. Mood Stabilizer
These are given to “minister” a person’s mood. The FDA approved Lithium carbonate and it is the only in the mood stabilizer class. While there are more mood stabilizers in the market, none have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. There are possibly consequences for using drugs not approved yet by the FDA so it is imperative that people talk with their doctor about their treatment options.

5. Calcium Channel Blockers
These are used in patients to help drop their blood pressure so long as their disease is manageable. It is able to lower heart rate by slowing down the diffusions of electric activity. Three such drugs fall into this category – Dihydropyridine, Phenylalkylamine and Benzonthiazepine.

Only Psychiatrists should prescribe medications and review treatment of a patient.

Psychotherapy

The second type of therapy for bipolar disorder is psychotherapy or rather “talk therapy“. This therapy allows the patient to open up and talk about causes that could cause depression. This is also the time to talk about factors to which trigger occurrences of bipolar. If patient is aware of what causes depression events, then they can take steps to avoid certain situations or come up with reasonable solutions to evade the problem.

In psychotherapy… there are two kinds: Interpersonal therapy in which the goal is to help change behavior to have a positive effect with other people and cognitive-behavioral therapy which aims to appraise beliefs and feelings that can alter responses to different scenarios. The most important thing to remember is patience. Bipolar is treatable though patients often undergo long-term medicinal therapy.

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