Effects of Premenstrual Flare-Ups of Bipolar Disorder

This strikes a familiar chord. I used to have an irregular cycle and could never predict my periods (PCOS). But, the 4 or 5 times when I have had severe psychosis (usually manic, 1 depressive)… I was always been surprised with it a few days into my IP stay. What a joy that would be.

Ironically now that I am diabetic, my cycles come like clockwork. Thanks metformin.

Most definately every month there is another dent in the dishwasher from me kicking it !.
My meds seem to manage the depression pretty well but I do notice that I feel quite low when I’m pre-menstrual. Like most women I tend to be a bit teary and moody, but what is most frightening is that my anger gets out of control and I go into full blown rage.
I am normally a very placid person but I seem to get so wound up over nothing, spit venom at everyone – even strangers on the telephone and become very violent towards my furniture.
Even my dogs seem to know and stay away.
It really does scare me, takes me ages to come down from all that dark energy and I’m totally exhausted afterwards. Not fun at all.

As I became older the PMS effects have become more benign. Once in a while I am mildly depressed, cry easily. I believe this goes along with other symptoms like water retention and changed appetite. Sometimes I also have been quite irritable. In the majority of the time however I’m fine and PMS symptoms are absent or very mild.

During my younger years, especially in my teens and early twenties, it was much more pronounced. Going beyond 35 sort of mellowed things out. Being treated now might have a positive effect also, too early to say.

Most definitely. It manifests itself with severe paranoia (psychosis) and suicidal ideation/depression. I always watch for it and take it extra easy on myself and try to consciously be more understanding of the people who have to live with me.

I have always had moderate to severe PMS symptoms, including severe irritability. I often find myself yelling at the kids for no reason, or at least not much of a reason. So, my experience is more of a “mixed” phase, usually.

Yes, things definately got worse premenstrual. My cycles were only 23 or 24 days long and for a week before and 3 days after i was awful, totally a basket case. So for 10 out of every 23 days living was hell for me and my partner. I was agitated, angry, argumentative…it was hell. Now it just comes and goes on its own with no warning, rapid cycling hell.

I’m glad to see the study. I always know when I will start bleeding as I will get extremely upset over nothing, start crying, go into a deep depression, and 1-2 days later start bleeding. Once that starts within about a day I am back to my hypomaniac self, and will often swing to mania for a few hours. I cycle very rapidly.

The study confirms what I’ve already figured out, but it is comforting to hear that I am not the only one!

Yes, indeed. I would be full of rage and anger about a week before my period. Nothing helped that feeling until after I got my period, and then I’d be down in despair again. This yo-yoing was exhausting.

Absolutely. And I just had a hysterectomy – took the ovaries as well. That was due to severe endometriosis, but I’m enjoying feeling more grounded. I’m a little depressed and lethargic at times, but that could be truly hormonal. But the irritable mixed episodes I had been kept prisoner by have really leveled out. Thank goodness! I no longer fear not knowing if I’m going to go off in public or something. So far. I had the surgery Jan 6.

Absofrigginlutely. It started about a year after I was diagnosed. Two months in a row I made a spectacle of myself at work in front of my vice president. Yeah, I no longer work there. It also was compounded by seasonal affective symptoms, and all are under control now thanks to the wonders of modern medicine…

I have made my biggest blunders work wise and socially in the week before my period usually day exactly one week before. I have had outbursts at work and to friends goodness its embarrassessing remembering them all. I have always been trying to find ways to deal with this over the years. I have discovered its worse if I am drinking alcohol or a lot of coffee,

Yes! I’ve only been hospitalized twice for bipolar disorder and both times I got my period at the hospital- within the first 48 hours of my stay. Now I try to be a bit more cautious the week before my period is due. I try harder to avoid my triggers around that time and it seems to be working.

This is definitely true for me. When I was married (and undiagnosed at that time) my then-husband used to tell me at pms time that “I am afraid of you.”

I would just go off. He divorced me in 1994 and I didn’t get diagnosed as BP1 until 2003. I’m happy with my meds, but when it comes to PMS, I renamed it “PERPETUAL menstrual syndrome” as NO med seems to help. I just lose it and can’t seem to crawl out of the hole. It seems to last for well over 2 weeks. The misery of the weight gain, on top of my body image issues is unbearable. I have a previous issue of abusing laxatives, as a teenager (I’m 44), and am sorely tempted to start again. My pdoc just sternly tells me, “you KNOW that’s not right.” so much for compassion. well he’s a guy who’s never had pms so why is he so quick to judge? I miss my other pdoc from where I’m from. At least he was kind.

I have just resigned myself to the fact that when pms hits, that nothing I can do will help and I just have to suffer through it. Sometimes, I take an extra one of my prescription water pills or a half one…which I have a temptation to do on a regular basis, but this will mess with my heart/blood pressure meds.

Oh, and I get real paranoid too. I think people are following me on the road more than I usually do and the other day, after my meeting with my case worker, I had a guy behind me on the road. Not only did I think he was following me, but he was on the phone and I thought he was talking about me to someone else. In other words, my usual delusions get much, much worse.

Also, the fatigue is incapacitating. I was trying to work on a project for my best friend, hand-lettered invites for a party. I couldn’t even do a complete one without a break. I was just exhausted. And when I went to the store with my mom, I had to use the electric cart. I couldn’t even go for a walk. It’s better today, but where is my period? It takes so long to come and that in itself confuses me because having the period is a mood stabilizer. Incidentally, the uncompassionate pdoc I mentioned in my other post, prescribed a med that’s side effect was going to basically take away my period permanently. I just got it back after a stressful situation took it away for 4 years. I couldn’t have a prolonged absence of it again. Even 3 months on his med caused so much misery and bloating and emotional upheaval that I went off of it w/o permission at first. These docs really don’t feel what we feel do they?

every month during my premenstral cycle I get irritable with irrational outbursts.

I just ran across this article while sorting through my blog subscriptions. I am so glad to see this addressed. I was diagnosed Bipolar II in my late 30’s. Before that, I just figured I had raging PMS. My bipolar symptoms (mostly depression with a few days of hypomania) rapidly cycle monthly. With journaling & my PsyDoc’s help, we were able to determine the Bipolar symptoms separate from the premenstrual symptoms, because they didn’t completely match together. It’s a bit like the Bipolar cycles on a solar scale (12 months/year) and the menstruation is on a lunar cycle (13 months/year). So, kind of like an eclipse, when they both happen together, it’s a mild explosion.

I’m so glad to know I’m not alone. Now, I won’t even get into what the Type 2 Diabetes & the Fibromyalgia do to this dance.

I have been waiting for info to pop up about this subject. During my PMS time I become severely depressed and suicidal. My cycle has always been irregular unless I was on BCP. I recently went back on 3 months ago thinking that it might help my symptoms. My period still isnt coming regularly and my symptoms are not any better and sometimes worse. I am at a loss!!! It does help to hear other people’s stories…thaqnk u!!!!

I had the same pattern as Raven. I recognized it when I was 22–I wrote about it in my journal. It was so obvious, but I could never convince a therapist or Dr. until I was 39. I remember crying at my desk at work, crying on the bus, feeling so despondent and being afraid I was going into a long term deep depression. It really scared me. And then my period would start and right away I’d be elated, in love with the world, looking at street signs and thinking they were absolutely beautiful. It was a very hard way to live. I couldn’t make long range plans and decisions, and ended up making arbitrary life-altering changes which added to my turmoil.

My pdoc said I might get some relief after menopause. I’m going through that right now and feel kind of boring, but it’s a *good* boring.

I have been tracking this for years and telling my doctor I was so depressed when I am suppose to have my period and she wont do any thing is there any thing I can take to help me with this I am on birth control and dont accualy get my period but the day it hits me I know I call it my crazy week I am on a roller coaster for 7 days Help me if you canwhat can I tell my dr so she helps me ????

Kristi, I’m surprised your tracking hasn’t made your doctor pay attention, but – I suggest you print out the study that’s listed as the source in my blog above (you can print the page itself, or get a PDF of the page at a link at the bottom) and take it to your doctor. Hopefully with those results in front of her she will take you seriously. If not, you might consider getting a second opinion from another doctor.

I get extremely depressed and full of fury when my period is approaching and the irrational annoyance with everyone and everything, life in general overwhelms me and drives me even deeper.

I try to avoid speaking with people when I am like this, but friends and loved ones call and I have to answer sometime. I don’t want to explain what’s going on so I just keep it short and even then I’m rude. I feel bad, but if I continued contact with them, it would be much worse.

I’d also like to add, that it bothers me very much when people wonder what I am doing or inquire about what I’m doing because I am extremely paranoid at the time of my menstrual cycle.

Im glad ive found this website cus i was curious to know if other women went thru the same thing. I jus turned 29 and have been trying to manage this BP stuff for four yrs. Ive been hospitalized about four times and now im jus realizing that ive gotten my period soon as i hit he hospital floors! This wAS getting silly so now im beginning to see that i have to start logging down my emotions and putting them in check before they even start! Around the second week i get cranky, distant, teary-eyed and down right ignorant before menstration. My doc even increases my dose of lithium around this time. I even take the route of distancing myself around this time. GOTTA DO WHAT I GOTTA DO. Ladies i suggest u do the same for your health and well being for the sake of not entering a psych ward. Balance is KEY

It is great to read so many stories I thought I was just being crazy, my bipolar 1 gets out of control sometimes up to 3 weeks before my period. The older I have got the worse it has become, I’m 39 and if I thought ripping my uterus out would cure it I bloody would. I hate how when it comes to this issue no scientists or doctors are doing anything about it for tratment. To busy making money from all the medications to control Bipolar I suspect! I even had a birh control implant put in and without knowing till it was in, I was told by a nurse it would make my condition worse, I even told the gyno of my condition before he put it in. General rule of thum ladies, “Don’t trust anyone” do your own research! Good luck people!