[imaginethat]

Once you're diagnosed with and treated for bipolar disorder, are you bipolar for the rest of your life? If the bipolar symptoms are solved, are you still bipolar, or are do you have chronic depression instead.

[Tucson]

You will always be Bipolar. There is no cure for this MI. You do not “grow” out of it. You can be in remission for a period of time. The symptoms and their severity can change over time. But you will still have this MI. This thought does not place one in their happy place, does it? But personally I have come to accept it, for the most part. At times my only resistance is to the taking of my meds.

[imaginethat]

That's what I tend to think, Tucson. It doesn't make me happy, but it doesn't make me sad as long as it's under control. I've come to terms with having to take medicine the rest of my life.

Thanks for your response.

[~Christina]

I have Bipolar and will always. There are many things worse to have.

[BipolaRNurse]

Yeah, Tucson is right. It's like diabetes: your blood sugars can be completely normal, you're off insulin, and life is golden...but once you have the diagnosis, you have it for life. It only goes into remission. I had a hard time accepting that, almost as hard as it was to accept that I had bipolar and would need to be on meds forever. Fortunately both my diabetes and my BP are under good control now.

[*Laurie*]

Yes. There is a legitimate school of thought that suggests that people with BD actually have a different type of brain than other people have. I tend to agree, although I do wonder if BD is currently being over-diagnosed. I have no idea, though.

[Gabyunbound]

I think that popular wisdom says that, yes, once bipolar, always bipolar. As for me, I just don't know. I frankly have no idea. I'm going to ask my pdoc, but then I suspect that different pdocs will have different opinions on the subject.