[Mullia]

Hi everyone,
My doctor recently told me that he thinks my BD is caused by brain inflammation and can be completely cured.
Has anyone else ever been told anytging like that??

no.... I've heard of meds easing the psymptoms and making you more stable, but never cured..

welcome!

[cinnamonsun]

I have BD, and I've never heard that it's curable. However, it can go into remission and be less intense after treatment and stabilization on medication. But does it ever completely go away? I haven't heard that it does. Best wishes to you on your personal journey.

[downandlonely]

I don't think most psychiatrists would say that bipolar can be cured.

Is this doctor one of these holistic or naturopath doctors? In eastern medicine perhaps? I would beware. I saw an acupuncturist once who did not believe in western medicine. She told me to stop taking my psych meds. If I had been taking benzos and done what she said, I could literally have died. Stopping cold turkey is never a good idea.

[RoxanneToto]

I’ve heard the same thing said about other mental illnesses and neurological disorders. I don’t think we know enough about the human brain to confidently pronounce any mental illness totally curable. Even illnesses we understand a lot more about now than, say, a few decades ago are still not always easy to manage.

[FluffyDinosaur]

"Inflammation" is one of these things to which quacks tend to attribute every other illness. Everything is due to some sort of "inflammation" or "imbalance," and can be easily cured by this or that herb or whatever. Unless he can provide some explanation on how he thinks "inflammation" would cause BD without symptoms of encephalitis, I call BS. Is this guy even a real psychiatrist?

[Soupe du jour]

Curable? No. Manageable to the point of long-term remission? Yes, but some people are luckier than others when it comes to that.

I never really heard an inflammation explanation. I rather learned that mood episodes are more a result of issues with neurotransmitters in the brain.

[Victoria'smom]

I'm hoping one day. Right now no. Can eating right, Sleeping right, exercise and whatever help yeah. We don't know enough about the brain to cure it. I've never heard the inflammatory reason but I've heard all types of thing that boil down to it's "your" fault. It's hard not to believe that more veggies would help enough to get off meds. Hell I'm struggling now not to believe it's an environmental thing and making drastic changes or my meds making me more sick. Honestly I feel that Dr. is extremely dangerous, please run.

[Moose72]

Yeah. What they said! ^^^

[Nammu]

Inflammation has been blamed for many things including mental illness. It’s been around for centuries. There was one doctor back in the early 1900’s who pulled teeth and said that would cure any MI from depression to schizophrenia, when that didn’t work he said their bowls were inflamed and removed their intestines. Many of his patients died on the operating table and he then proclaimed them cured!