Art is vital to my existence… Without it I would be unable to survive, I believe this to be true. I am able to express the darkness and light through different mediums. It gives me hope and joy even when everything seems so bleak.

Raising a kid with bipolar disorder is not an easy thing. It usually causes a great deal of angst, to the kid. But, it causes a great deal of angst and anxiousness for the rest of the family as well. Unfortunately, as of yet, a cure for bipolar does not exist. Therefore, it is incumbent on everyone in the family to learn to deal with the current state of affairs.

There are several good treatments for bipolar disorder. When an adult has this illness, it is pretty standard for the doctor to prescribe one or more types of medication. When treating children, however, you have less leeway. The physician has to be much more careful when prescribing medications for a child. The reason is that a child is still growing and developing. As a result, you want to be as sure as possible that any medications he is given will not adversely impact the development of his brain or body. Therefore, even when medicines are prescribed for children, they are usually prescribed in limited dosages. And, due to this limitation, they will not always have the same effect in a child as they would in a grownup.

Due to the exaggerated effects that drugs can often have on a child, many times, therapy is just as significant in the treatment of bipolar children as are drugs. One of the primary causes of anxiousness in a child suffering from bipolar is his inability to understand why he reacts to things in a certain way. To help him to understand, we use therapy – one of the best means available in helping us to understand why we do certain things and react in certain ways.

During the course of speaking with his therapist about his issues, the thought is that he will gradually come to gain an understanding of bipolar and the reasons why it is causing him to behave in a certain manner. It helps to alleviate his frustrations. And, this understanding and demystification of the disease helps to come to calm his reactions to the illness and to come to terms with it. In addition, therapy can provide him with the psychological tools to better control his reactions when with friends and family or when by himself.

Over the years, many forms of therapy have been developed to treat illnesses such as bipolar illness. And, one type of therapy that has shown great utility is one known as social rhythm therapy or treatment. It is a relatively recent type of therapy. And it shows great promise in its ability to treat bipolar disease. This treatment mainly concentrates on helping the child to establish and maintain daily habitual rhythms in their lives.

Specifically, what this means is that the child will be advised and encouraged to set up regular patterns for his daily activities. This includes activities such as sleeping, eating, exercising, homework – everything that he typically does during the course of a normal day. So, for instance, rather than going to bed at random times during the week, he is encouraged to go to bed, every day, at the same time.

So, likewise for each of the normal activities that he does day to day such as eating, school, and other activities – he sets a regular schedule and routine. An in establishing these regular patterns, he will find that the stresses that occur during the day have less impact on him.

Recognition of how effective a form of treatment such as social rhythm therapy can be is important. It emphasizes the fact that, to be most effective, bipolar has to be attacked in various ways and not simply by drugs. And, by incorporating this type of therapy into the overall treatment process, he will find it much easier living day to day.

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I’m asking because my ex use to take 400mg of SEROQUEL nightly. He was an angel on his medication.

Now after 10 months he has stopped taking his 400mg of SEROQUEL because he feels he doesnt need it. He also stopped individual and family therapy.

Anyways, after 10 months of doing awesome with SEROQUEL, he now claims that 400mg of SEROQUEL makes him not able to function because of the drowsy side effects.

Some nigths he will take 50mg of SEROQUEL as a sleeping pill.

He’s been off his 400mg dose of SEROQUEL for 10 months now.

What will happen if he continues to not take medication or therapy?

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:

A. Atypical antidepressants is one example that is not chemically related to other antidepressant medication. Medicines fitting in this category are: Wellbutrin, Desyrel and Rameron.

B. Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors or rather known as MAOIs help to disease the symptoms. These category includes: Manerix, Marplan, Nardil and Parnate.

C. Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRis include Celexa, Paxil, Lexapro, Prozac, Luvox and Zoloft. These help concentrate on a neurotransmitter in the brain.

D. 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.

E. 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.

Psychiatrists should prescribe medications and review treatment of a patient.

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.