Sorry you're going through this. Meds are a difficult issue. I only got diagnosed with bipolar in June of this year. They still don't have my meds right. Either I'm depressed or super hyper. It's a difficult balance and it may take a year or more to get them right. That's not to say that she'll be in the hospital that long. She'll just get to a place where she's not a danger to herself even if she is a little high or low and keep checking in with her psych doc and a therapist to make sure things don't get out of control while they're fine tuning the meds.

Hope this helps. Start a new thread and more people will probably see and respond to it. We're around for friends and family of bipolars as well as the bipolars themselves. It's a good idea for your wife to find a support group when she gets out. Psych Central has helped me a great deal in understanding the disease and finding people who have had similar experiences and found solutions to them.