ADD and Bipolar Mood Disorder

Monty Loree of http://money-maturity.blogspot.com asked "I don't have ADD, but I do know people who are ADD and bipolar. Is there a way to insulate yourself emotionally and stressfully against these financial surprises? Can you anticipate these problems to a certain extent to ease the blow?  I'm just curious." 

I will attempt to answer this question with two posts. The first post will differentiate between ADD/ADHD and Bipolar Mood Disorder. The second post will deal with anticipating financial surprises.

Academic studies show that between 6% and 7% of adults with ADHD also have Bipolar Mood Disorder (BMD).  While both ADHD and BMD have similar components: impulsivity, distractability, risk taking, mood instability. There are several key difference between the two.

1. Mood changes for people with ADHD are triggered by life events, where as BMD mood changes are not triggered.

2. Mood changes for people with ADHD happen suddenly and can change up to several times in a day. With BMD the mood are much longer in duration and can last for weeks or months.

3.  ADHD is always present in people who have it, while people with BMD can go through stages with normal mood levels.

A person who has both ADHD and Bipolar Mood Disorder should first be treated for BMD before they deal with their ADHD issues. I do not have a lot of experience with Bipolar Mood Disorder, if you would like more information about the subject please visit http://www.dbsalliance.org/

In preparing this blog I relied heavily on pages 292-301 of the book " Gender Issues and AD/HD" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971460922/livingwithadd/103-1415501-8257411

The academic studies that I referenced are:

Psychiatric Phenomenology of Child and Adolescent Bipolar Offspring.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 39(4):453-460, April 2000.
CHANG, KIKI D. M.D.; STEINER, HANS M.D.; KETTER, TERENCE A. M.D.

Biederman J, Mick E et al: the Naturalistic Course of Pharmacologic treatment of Children With Maniclike Symptoms: A Systematic Chart Review (1998) Journal of Clinical Psychiatry :628-637

Comments

[emily]

Hi,

I just wanted to comment that I have both disorders, and treating the adhd first was far more important. In some people, the bipolar should be treated first, but in many, many cases (like mine), the adhd is so overwhelming and consuming, that the medication for the bipolar was making me sick and had to be stopped. Once the ADHD medicine was in place and working properly, then I began the bipolar treatment with much better results. My doctor who is considered an expert in that area has said that since both illnesses can go hand in hand it is not very common for people to realize that they have both. More often than not the adhd does hve to be treated first.

Thank!

[Timothy Gibbs]

I am trying to get properly diagnosed and figure out whether I have ADHD or bipolar disorder. I have been to several different mental health professionals, all of whom say I am bipolar. However, I have taken several on-line ADHD test and have scored off the charts on all of them. I have every single symptom of ADHD. It is my understanding that the symptoms of both disorders are very similar. However, I have every single symptom, without exception that ADHD exhibits. The mental health professionals I've talked to just seem to dismiss it and automatically want to say it is bipolar disorder. I think they may be wrong, but i'm not a mental health professional. Ijust want to make sure that if I am taking medication for the rest of my life, it is for the right thing. Why don't they want to consider ADHD?

[Jason Edwards]

i have both, dont take pills. its awesome add pills kill your personality and i dont want pills for bipolar because with hypomania comes extremely creative thinking.

[(B F)]

i have rapidcycling bi-polar and add. i am on lamictal for bi-polar but i am not being trested for my add. my doctor told me that any add medication would most likely send me into a mania. does anyone know of a medication that i might be able to take? maybe one that treats both?

[stevedavid]

Hi All,
Having ADD is a very serious problem that i can understand very well. One of my friend's brother faced the same problem long ago. His everyday went in stress and nothing else. We do have lots contacts of doctors who really would like to answer your queries regarding the same. please ask your queries and problems and i will be back for sure.
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Steve

Dual Diagnosis
http://www.dual-diagnosis.net