What happened to my mood swings?

Sorry for what appears to be a double post. Here are my mood charts starting in May. The first one for May is much like previous months. I missed a fews days charting. Those days are probably due to depression. The second chart for June shows stability for a few weeks now.

Any thoughts about these two mood charts included as attachments? Do you think I am rapid cycling? I hope that it is my meds that are responsible for the recent stability. I am taking 300 mg of Lamictal, 60 mg of Prozac, and 10 mg of Zyprexa.

I am suspecting rapid cycling occurs over weeks. So my mood may be just "unstable".

You have levelled out through June??
If you are looking for answers I think you had better ask your Pdoc. I dont want to give you any information that may be incorrect.

Best wishes

I have a similar situation. My mood goes up and down like roller coaster, sometimes day to day.
I asked my Pdoc about it, and it wasn't rapid cycling necessarily, but he said it's a "mixed episode". I guess mixed means that you can be up and then down, or a mixture of up and down.
My main symptoms of my mixed episode was irritability, which is the whole reason I got a doctor in the first place.

Lamictal is starting to even out my moods a little, but I think I might need a higher dose.

Glad to hear your mood has stabilized.

Mixed episode? Irritability also is one of my problems. And that explains why I can have restless energy when my mood is low. Another piece of the puzzle fits in place!

pawn wrote:

My main symptoms of my mixed episode was irritability, which is the whole reason I got a doctor in the first place.

I don't get it.
If one is diagnosed 'bipolar', either I or II, and you happen to experience irritability, an ordinary emotion, in one of your ordinary days ... that gets labelled as 'mixed episode' ?

Ordinary irritable now constitutes 'an episode'?
Good grief, Charlie Brown.

When did 'feeling irritable' get kicked out of the legitimate 'normal' range of emotions?
Psychobabble labeling seems to have gotten far fetched.
I am sorry that this is so for you.

I do not see irritability as a de terminating factor by itself. There is more that needs to be present like agitation, volatile outbursts, depression in terms of mood, restlessness, and so forth. But I still find it an interesting thought.

There is a difference between normal, everyday irritability and chronic, episodic irritability that causes you to fly into a rage and oh, I don't know, scream profanities and physically assault your husband as I have done. Irritability that goes above and beyond mere annoyance is not exactly an ordinary emotion.

I think everything involved in bipolar can be considered an ordinary emotion - except it's been amplified by a million and causes great suffering to those who experience it. So I don't think it's as simple as psychobabble pathologizing everything.

wow, i guess you didn't really read my post. the "mixed episode" diagnosis is just a label, but it was from my extreme mood swings, one day way up, several days irritable as all hell, then ok, then happy, then irritable as hell again for awhile. I couldn't even distinguish my mood from depression or mania, it was just a mess!

Do you really think i sought and pay a Pdoc just because I am mildly irritable? No, my irritability was slowly destroying my marriage, my family life and my work life.

Good grief, don't judge without knowing the whole story.

edit:
Oh yeah, and I have been diagnosed as bipolar 1, for 17 years, and been hospitalized for it twice with extreme mania. And my Pdoc has been doing psychiatry for over 30 years, and is one of the highest rated Pdoc's in the area, and I will trust his diagnosis over your opinion any day.