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Have you or someone you know successfully managed bipolar disorder without medication?

If so, how?

Posted - February 13, 2018
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Responses


  • 3375
    Nope.  
      February 13, 2018 5:09 PM MST
    2

  • 46117
    Of course not. 

    It is a chemical imbalance.  It is not to be messed with. Take the meds.  My daughter has this disorder and if she doesn't take her meds, she is someone that cannot be communicated to.  You cannot meditate this away.
      February 13, 2018 5:14 PM MST
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  • 7939
    I wasn't referring to myself, but thank you for the response. 
      February 13, 2018 9:17 PM MST
    1

  • 3375
    My son as well.  It can be a deadly situation for him if he skips his meds and crashes.  Nothing to fool around with is right.
      February 14, 2018 10:10 AM MST
    0

  • 46117

    Some things have not reached a natural cure.  I mean we have not found a sure-fire method to end something that is in the brain chemistry.  Like Cerebral Palsy.  The muscles look all twisted and affected and actually the muscles are healthy and normal.  It is the brain and the neurotransmitters wreaking havoc on the messages the nerves send to the muscles.

    So, with Bi-polar activity, it is also something in the chemistry of the brain that we have not been able to control without meds.  Thank GOD for them, too.

    I wonder what Tom Cruise, the great physician of Scientology, would diagnose for those suffering with Bi-polar disorder.   They don't believe in psychiatrists or psychiatric meds.  Ironic, since he seems to have a bit of manic/depressive disorder himself.  Look at that mania behavior when he was on Oprah!

    But, I digress.

     

      February 14, 2018 7:27 PM MST
    1

  • 3375
    You would think we would have a better understanding of mental illness and how it's an illness like anything.  It happens to affect the brain.  I take an anti depressant.  I am not bipolar, but do suffer from bouts of depression.  Without medication, I don't know where I would be.  I have had other family members that were totally against treatment and they battled all sorts of things like alcoholism and just plain misery.  

    Bipolar has a high rate of suicide without treatment.  I know I would never tell someone to try and manage it without medication.
      February 14, 2018 10:02 PM MST
    0

  • 3463
    Not that I know of.
      February 13, 2018 6:00 PM MST
    4

  • 44583
    I am going to experimentally go off of mine to see what happens.
      February 13, 2018 6:11 PM MST
    1

  • 7939
    Please no. D:

      February 13, 2018 9:18 PM MST
    1

  • 44583
    Just kidding. That would be foolish.
      February 14, 2018 7:41 AM MST
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  • 46117
    I think you should experimentally take something. 
      February 14, 2018 7:27 PM MST
    1

  • 44583
    I do.
      February 15, 2018 9:21 AM MST
    0

  • 22891
    my sister told me my brother wasnt taking it, not sure how he manages it
      February 13, 2018 7:28 PM MST
    3

  • 7280
    My sister-in-law has it.  The answer is no.  And I know nothing about its treatment.

    But:  https://theconversation.com/managing-bipolar-disorder-without-medication-48640 
      February 13, 2018 8:30 PM MST
    4

  • 17582
    No.  
      February 13, 2018 9:17 PM MST
    4

  • 6098
    I know people who have cured themselves of all manner of ailments and unhappinesses with food.  Diet.  For someone to be so particularly diagnosed they would need to have sought medical care which would mean they buy into that and accept that. I'm sure some people do fine without drugs.  In fact don't know how well people really do on drugs either. Some of the women I work with are on meds as well as their kids and though they may "manage" one thing or another it leads to further trouble and health issues down the line.  Just my observation. 
      February 14, 2018 8:23 AM MST
    1

  • 46117
    Living with and enduring a condition is not the same as managing it.

    I agree with you that many people go undiagnosed  and manage to get through their lives, but it would be far better for them if they were properly diagnosed and properly medicated.  I realize this is a very difficult disease to diagnose and many are on the wrong meds in spite of being treated.  That is a tragedy.  Many go off their meds because of this because they would rather be high and low than just low all the time, which is what many meds do.  Also they can speed you up so you are jumping out of your skin.

    But, still, to be bi-polar and just try and wing it, is the true tragedy.
      February 14, 2018 7:31 PM MST
    2

  • 6098
    Thank you. Some years ago I was with a man who was so diagnosed and eventually hospitalized and ended up a very pale shadow of what he had been (creative and successful).

    For me the true tragedy is billions of drug-dependent people.  Now it is their lives and they have that freedom  but can't help  thinking of it as a sorry waste. 
      February 15, 2018 5:27 AM MST
    1

  • 46117
    The last paragraphs you wrote are not to be ignored AT ALL.  I totally agree.  There is nothing NOTHING worse than someone who is addicted to any pills that are doing as much harm as good.  I have a former best-friend (she dumped me in early high-school and I think it was because she was beginning to manifest symptoms of a chemical imbalance.  Ironically.  But, she has been living in some condo for years and never leaves the house.  She can order her pills by phone and the doctor is happy to send them along to her address as long as she pays.

    She needs to be medicated but she is on meds only she wants.  Pain Killers and that route.  So, she might as well be dead, since she is a shell of her former self and very hostile and angry and sad and all the side-effects that pain killer addiction causes. 

    She will die that way since people have tried to intervene and no one can stop this abuse she controls.

    Sigh.  You are right.
      February 15, 2018 9:24 AM MST
    2

  • 16732
    No, but combining medication with meditation works a lot better for my better half than medication alone. Her meltdowns are less severe and less frequent since she started meditating for a half hour every night. She's not bipolar, but postnatal psychosis has many of the same symptoms.
      February 14, 2018 11:01 PM MST
    2

  • 46117
    I forgot to add the meditation part, Slarti, thank you for that addition.  Yes, meditation is very helpful along with the correct meds.  Shame on me.  That is supposed to be my route to health, the natural methods that work, but this bi-polar condition and the postnatal psychosis condition and all conditions that cause brain chemistry to go all over the place, should in this day and age, be employed.  We cannot trust that someone (let's say me for the example, I am not bi-polar).   So, I decide to do meds and meditate and I am bi-polar.  Then I start feeling on top of the world and I stop the meds.  It happens all the time with this disease.   The real situation is that I am feeling good because it is part of the disease I have and the mania portion, while tampered down by the meds, actually is affecting my judgment again.

    SO, it is subtle and that makes it a danger.  A Bi-polar person without meds is a danger.  To oneself as well as anyone in range of the effects of the behavior that has taken over the person suffering.

    The bi-polar oftentimes is oversexed, wants to drink, wants to gamble, wants to shop and they want to do it compulsively for hours and hours.   The drinking and self-medicating is the dangerous part. 

    It puts everyone in harm's way.

    But if it is under control, there is no better support than meditation.  It should almost be a requirement by any psychiatrist with this type of patient.   I say it this way because you cannot calm yourself down and be in any place that is effective if you are not medicated. You have to start with calm and centered, at least when you are just learning how.

    I am no expert, but I cannot say enough about how meditation has helped me in the last few years since I have tried to employ it more and more.

    Thanks for listening to this harrangue, if you are.

      February 15, 2018 9:33 AM MST
    1

  • 34172
    I know a few. One has been on meds for 30 yrs back when they called it manic depression.  She is.very mellow as long as she stays on them. And would become violent without them. Has been in and out of hospital for years for either her stopping the meds or getting a new doc who would mess with the dosage and type. She is on kidney dialysis now because of the meds.

    Another was never officially diagnosed, she managed to work and had a home etc but also alienated her children/grandchildren and eventually died of cancer because she refused to get treatment for saying the doctors would poison her. I believe she feared being diagnosed and put in the hospital. I don'
     know if you would consider that managing or not.

    Another I don' know if has every been diagnosed.  But has said they keep trying to but her on "those drugs". She always has drama of some sort going on but generally is harmless. Recently she was even worse than normal and talking she said they got me on this med and this time, I have to take it. (I asume they were doing regular blood work) And whatever it was made her worse. Drama over everything. She was gonna go into business to put us out of business, was going to sue everybody, etc. We did try to talk to her about her new meds but that did not go over well. Eventually she went back home, and the last time we talked to her a few months later, she seemed back to normal. I assume she stopped taking that med. Yes, I believe she manages it without meds. 

    I know one who experienced post partum mania. This was scary.  Her obgyn prescribed a psych drug just days after her delivery. She had a hallucinations while on the drug and ended up in the hospital for weeks. She got out and a regular psychologist wanted to put her on lithium. (you will have kidneys fail in 30 yrs with this) She did not want that so he put her on something else. (which is also used to treat ADHD...scary as well) She was determined she was not gonna be on this med for the rest of her life and she concentrated on her prayer and her Bible studying the healing scriptures. All while taking her meds like clockwork and getting proper nutrition and rest. After a few months she convinced her doc to cut back the meds. And by six months she was off them completely. After some research, I learned that no meds should have been prescribed until at least 2 weeks after childbirth. Makes me mad just thinking about it. 
      February 15, 2018 5:01 AM MST
    2