Bipolar Insomnia - One Disorder Feeds The Other
Bipolar insomnia is a condition that, while well known to exist, remains in some ways a kind of mystery. Treatment for the condition is not always straightforward, since the manic depressive modes of bipolar disorder can bring on insomnia, and insomnia in turn can feed bipolar disorder symptoms, or cause someone who has had experienced the symptoms to relapse back into them. In other words, bipolar disorder has some synergistic characteristics.
Statistics have revealed that a significant percentage of the general population who suffer from insomnia also suffer from one or another disorder at the same time, including bipolar disorder. The fact that a relationship exists between insomnia and depression has been known for some time, and it has generally been assumed that prolonged periods of depression can bring about incidents of insomnia or even chronic insomnia. What was not realized at first was that the opposite is true as well, persistent insomnia can bring about periods of depression.
This really is not all that surprising in that when we are depressed we often worry or experience anxiety attacks, and worry is a major cause of sleeplessness. Furthermore, it's been determined that a definite link exists between insomnia and the manic stage of a bipolar disorder. When in the manic stage, a person tends to be going full bore, is very excitable, and can find it difficult to relax, which in turn means it can be difficult to sleep.
Medications Can Be Counterproductive - One of the problems with treating bipolar insomnia is that treatments for insomnia symptoms tied to the depressed stage are not always the same as treatments for insomnia tied to the manic stage, in fact the treatments may counteract one another in some instances. An example is, a medication prescribed to alleviate insomnia problems when someone is in a state of depression may contribute to sleeplessness when that same person swings over to the manic state or stage.
Complicating matters still further is the situation where many medications that are often quite effective in treating a bipolar disorder can, over time bring on periods of insomnia, and the vicious cycle may begin all over again. And if that weren't enough, there are several medications bipolar patients can take that improves nighttime sleep, but at the expense of daytime alertness.
It probably isn't surprising to find that medications don't always have the same effect from one person to the next. Some will respond favorably to medications that seem to help both with bipolar symptoms and symptoms of sleeplessness, while the same medications may not help the next person at all, or even make the problem worse.
More Than Medication Required - What is apparent then, is treatment of bipolar insomnia is by no means a straightforward task, and more often that not requires a two-pronged, or even a three-pronged approach, especially in those situations where medication alone does not appear to be enough. The other avenues are behavioral interventions and cognitive behavioral therapy. Medications, referred to in the trade as pharmacologic agents, can quite often bring short term relief, especially relief from symptoms of insomnia. This can make behavioral interventions and/or cognitive behavioral therapy treatment easier to implement, and generally more effective.
Synergy Works Both Ways - Many mental disorders require long term, and sometimes permanent treatment, but just as bipolar disorders can foster insomnia and vice versa, when patients respond favorably to treatment of one of the two conditions, it often helps greatly in the treatment and improvement of the other condition, and the synergistic effect found in bipolar insomnia can actually make treatment easier and more effective in many cases.