Mental Health Warmer weather and hypomania/mania

[paranoid android]

So it's that time of year again. Winter is over (well mostly), the days are getting longer, the weather is warming up and in places where the sun actually comes out more then twice a month it's getting sunnier. Around this time almost every year i start to feel much better after a long winter and a miserable spring. Spring time is for the most part the most miserable season here where i live as you get constant rain, drizzle and fog.

Also i find that with summer usually comes hypomania and sometimes full blown mania if i am really unlucky . A few years ago i got so hyper around may that i had to go on quetiapine and risperidone together just to calm the fuck down and the manic episode lasted a few months ffs! This past week i have been feeling better then i have in over a year mainly because this is the longest i have gone without the horrible stomach cramps i have been suffering from. I have been sleeping less then i did during the winter (8 hours or less as opposed to 16 fucking hours during the worst of the winter months) and i have been much more active then i have been all winter. So yeah i have been doing good lately

The only thing i am worried about is if i start to feel too good so to speak. As in not sleeping hardly at all, constantly active with cleaning the house and working out way more then normal, wanting to fuck everything in sight and spending money on the dumbest shit ever. You know the drill . The thing is i have felt so lousy with pain and depression for so long that feeling good and actually healthy is somewhat foreign to me now. I can't even remember the last time i felt this good for this long which is rather sad now that i think of it. But the thing is that will make it much harder to tell if i am going manic or if i am just having a really good day. Currently for bipolar disorder i am on 200mg's of lamotrigine, 300mg's of quetiapine (i was on 400mg's but my dosage was lowered about 2 weeks ago) and 300mg's of bupropion. I usually don't need the wellbutrin during the summer time but i think i will stay on it this summer so i can have some help in giving up smoking. I am just worried about not recognizing the hypomania and going full blown manic and having to end up on 2 different anti-psychotics again as seroquel is not that strong of a anti-psychotic for me.

I was just wondering how many other people here get hypomania and mania in the summer time almost like clockwork? I would also like to know how you cope with it?

 

[RobotRipping]

well my dad has bipolar and experiences the very same thing every summer. I'm not sure what i have but generally, the sunny weather doesn't do a whole lot for me, i hate the winter and the darkness but don't really have any differences other than just feeling like a nice sunny day is nice in itself and more comfortable to be out and about doing things. If i have hypomania it usually happens in the fall leading to winter and wears off a few months later. My dad copes with it by embracing it to do things, and sometimes he gets some manic ideas and stuff but uses copious amounts of strong cannabis to balance himself out and it works well enough, better than any other med i've seen him take.

i can see how one would be hesitant to feel good when you have past experience with mania but sometimes you just feel good when the weather is nice and the sun is shining. I hate how the weather affects mood with so many people and even myself because the area I live in (and you i guess) has the shittiest weather for most of the year. So if weather is correlated with mood then just by living here, i'm going to feel shitty most of the time, which is why i really want to leave this cold dark place of the world, even though summers are great and not overly hot.

 

[BeckyLee]

Hey PA,

I GO THROUGH THE EXACT SAME THING AS YOU EVERY. FUCKING. YEAR. Doctors can't decide whether I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, or Seasonal Bipolar, but it really doesn't matter. Labels are superfluous because the symptoms are the same. Fortunately the only "manic symptom" I regret from last month was wasting money on the stupid bullshit superficial creation of "womanhood-" makeup (I hardly ever wear makeup. WTF was I thinking?!).

In fact, since it gets warmer here quite a bit sooner, I became so manic in April (while NOT a danger to myself or anyone else), that my partner and Dad TRICKED me into committing me! That was hilarious, because when my drug tests came up negative, the hospital had no excuse to keep me more than a couple of days. I left with a new rx for Seroquel only. (BTW in the WONDERFUL Capitalist $tates, the price of Seroquel, though FINALLY generic here, ranges from fifty to five-HUNDRED dollars for the exact same script! :-/)

I say enjoy your happiness. I agree with the second paragraph advice of RobotRipping above. As long as you are getting enough sleep, you shouldn't have to worry about becoming psychotic. Yeah, being horny and wanting to work out all the time is kind of a drag, but it's kind of not, depending how you look at it. ;-) You know your body and brain enough to see your mental uniqueness for what it is. That is truly admirable!

I believe as white people we have a legitimate need for the sun and vitamin D that comes with it! In fact, I think far more people suffer from seasonal mood disorders than are willing to admit it.

Here is how I cope:
-Cod liver oil during the cold months, and krill oil during the warmer months (Fish oil is a natural mood stabilizer. Thanks crazymeds.us!)
-Wellbutrin during the winter (practically the only antidepressant worth a shit IMO)
-Seroquel, Ambien, and melatonin at night (Seroquel and melatonin every night, and Ambien just when I need it)
-EXTENSIVE exercise (preferably in the sun) to wear me the fuck out
-LOTS of shower time! (aka masturbation)
-I COMPLETELY cut sugar out of my diet- aside from natural sugar found in fruit or greek yogurt (WOW! What a difference THAT made!)
-Emergency valium in case I DO feel my hypo-mania transgressing into full-blown mania
-An ecig on hand to calm me down when I need it

Also, in regards to smoking, have you checked out the "ecigs" thread in Healthy Living? Still costs money, but probably a lot less than regular cig smoking. Also, no more smoker's cough, etc associated with breathing in smoke. Win-win!

Hope this helps!

 

[neversickanymore]

Yep.. I know what you all are saying.. IDK though I was able to keep myself out of depression and not cycle through the winter this time.. I have a much harder time keeping my self out of hypo as i like it so much, just keep a handle on it, i figured out my thought and views create my moods and buy altering them I am able to significantly reduce the highs and lows.. HMm though if something REAlly good happens I might be off to the races with the hypo.. don't ever go into the manic unless it drug induced.. just keep on the positive thoughts, but not the crazy positive thoughts.. I kinda like the bipo mood surfing now that i have it under control with altered thought as opposed to medication.. .. I just try and keep it reasonable.. .. hypo and sex drive.. yeah ..... well back to the mood surfing as its springtime and the surfs up

Here is a little bi polar song for all us Bi's.. turns my corner sometimes >Here<

 

[luckydeer]

Yeah, I feel similarly but it feels fantastic! I would hate to go on any medication that would obliterate this mood. I don't really think I'm manic at the moment, just feeling great finally, after a really terrible struggle with depression for so long. Yeah, I want to fuck everything in sight, I am extremely motivated to begin new projects, start businesses, read a tall stack of books, buy cocaine and just fucking explode into a million shards of ecstasy. BUT I am not sleeping or eating and so I am worried that I might have a touch of mania. I'd do anything to keep this feeling though, I wouldn't mention any of this to my psychiatrist since I feel like I would have to start seroquil again. Mild hallucinations, but I think it is because my eyes are just not used to being so over stimulated. The way I see it the fog has lifted.

 

[tu_madre]

^Just make sure you get enough sleep, luckydeer. While I was in the medical field, I saw my fair share of (lack of) sleep-induced psychosis.

 

[King-Anubis]

Yeah, I feel similarly but it feels fantastic! I would hate to go on any medication that would obliterate this mood. I don't really think I'm manic at the moment, just feeling great finally, after a really terrible struggle with depression for so long. Yeah, I want to fuck everything in sight, I am extremely motivated to begin new projects, start businesses, read a tall stack of books, buy cocaine and just fucking explode into a million shards of ecstasy. BUT I am not sleeping or eating and so I am worried that I might have a touch of mania. I'd do anything to keep this feeling though, I wouldn't mention any of this to my psychiatrist since I feel like I would have to start seroquil again. Mild hallucinations, but I think it is because my eyes are just not used to being so over stimulated. The way I see it the fog has lifted.

I think your psychiatrist would only medicate you if it's having a detrimental effect on your life - like if you overspend recklessly or start becoming malnutritioned or the likes. Either way you have a right to refuse treatment, and it's something that I've heard a lot of people with bipolar do. They'll take treatment for depression, but not mania. That being said, it could also be psychosis. So if I were you I'd avoid any illicit drugs that work on the dopamine receptors. That might reduce the visual hallucinations.

Most importantly, look after yourself! Force yourself to eat and - if possible - sleep (get a small supply of benzodiazepines from your doctors if you need to, and take them if you don't sleep for days) and enjoy it!

 

[paranoid android]

Hey Becks . I get seasonal affective disorder on top of the bipolar. During the winter i always get more depressed. It kind of depends on how bad the winter is in how depressed i am going to be . For that i take 300mg's of wellbutrin which usually works pretty good. It's just that last winter was so goddamn stressful due to events going on at home not to mention the pain i was having in my stomach that nothing was going to pull me out of it. Last summer didn't make me happy despite the way hotter then normal summer. I was just too depressed and in too much pain.

I think i was hypomanic there for abit but i finally did end up getting a few days of good sleep and it went away. A extra 100mg's of seroquel does help me sleep easier sometimes. Before i go to bed i take my nightly dose of meds which are seroquel, clonazepam, gabapentin (i always take that before bed because it helps restless legs so much) and lamotrigine. I also smoke Cannabis which combined with the meds usually put me out.

I totally agree with you becks on shrinks being total quacks. I refused to go back and see a shrink i saw for the first time over a month ago because he was a total moron and he didn't even pretend to give a fuck. So i am not wasting time and gas money going to see someone who does me no good. We have had generic seroquel here now for years. It went off patent about 3 or 4 years ago maybe. Unfortunately seroquel XR is still on patent and my insurance won't cover it. Zyprexa works way better for me but i can't afford the price for a 10mg generic pill and my insurance won't cover it. I really don't want to try risperidone again so i'm stuck with seroquel for now.

I plan on staying on my meds for now and i will watch for hypomania. Even with hypomania i usually start to get irritable pretty quick so that and no sleep or little sleep are 2 things to watch out for. If i let hypomania go too long it can turn into full blown mania which is not a good thing

 

[Vaya]

paranoidandroid, I hear/feel you all too well on this (both regarding SAD and variations of mania). Springtime signals the beginning of alternating periods of hypomania and mania for me, too. And this year, it makes me sad to report, has been no different (and in some ways, worse) than previous years.

I've been suffering from extreme insomnia recently due to drifting into manic states frequently. If i didn't work in the evenings, I'm sure I'd've lost my job by now, as I usually crash at/around 5 AM.

I've been trying, with limited success, to control these massive fluctuations in mood with Neurontin, but most days it just isn't cutting it.

You're most certainly not alone

 

[weekend addiction]

I had a couple bipolar buddies and we all experienced the same thing. At some point everybody in the group got really depressed and anxious in the winter at about the same time.

EDIT: In the summer we all noted that we more more on the manic side of things. IME the weather tends to affect my mood but so does everything else.

 

[Cartesia]

Definitely does it to me. I find I'm very affected by such things. For example my housemate hates the light, but me I love it.. just feeling sunlight on my face makes me happy.. a sunny day after winter triggers a bout of fullon mania, almost like clockwork.

Unfortunately heading the other direction down here... Just waiting for something to devestate me and throw me off course into the deep end.