Head Injury and Bipolar

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with head injury either causing or triggering their bipolar.

As a teen, I was a hard core drug abuser. In hind sight, it was to self medicate my issues and deal with the depression and calm me down during my manic phases. My teachers just assumed I had ADHD at those time. Ha

Anyway, I suffered a moderate traumatic brain injury when I was 20 and was hospitalized for a couple weeks. This is when the cycling got worse. It continued untill a couple months ago (22 now) when a mixed episode landed me in a pdoc office. Doing the medicine dance ever since.

Today the pdoc said that she doesn't want to put a name on my issue, just treat the symptoms. I am currently on lamictal and lithium. A quick google search leads to what they are treating. But she is still hesitant to give me the official diagnosis. Her partner in the practice however (whom I met with when I was angry at her) said in my file I am bipolar. So I am confused on why she is hesitant to tell me the official name when it is in my file. Maybe she doesn't know if tbi caused bipolar is the same as classical diagnosed bipolar.

She also is trying to send me to a study on tbi survivors and their phyc issues. I was just wondering if anyone had any personal experience with tbi causing or making their bipolar worse. And maybe some inside onto why the pdoc is hesitant to give me the name of the issue, even if it is in her file.

I understand brain injury contributes to bipolar but I don't know the details.

I played rugby and football while in highschool and was once hospitalized with a concussion. I believe I had other concussions but they were not as severe and diagnosed.

Clinical depression began in my mid 30's but I was melancoly all my life. Mania that disrupted my life started in my early 40's. I was hospitalized briefly at that time and I had a CAT scan and another brain exam. I think they were looking for old brain injuries.

My psychiatrist and doctor didn't give me a label until a consulting psychiatrist reviewed my file when I was nearly 50. Before that time, i was mainly treated with anti-depressants. After the diagnosis, epival, later changed to zyprexa, was added.

I understand brain injuries can contribute to mood disorders but not in every case. I don't care whether my concussions gave me bipolar, or just made it worse. I am what I am. All that matters to me is that my mood disorder is being treated effectively with the medication and I have a reasonable quality of life.

My advice is to not become your diagnosis. Also, don't tolerate disruptive symptoms. They don't go away. Discuss them with your doctor and take your medication as prescribed. If the meds have disruptive side effects, tell your doctor about it, and stick with changes in medication.

All the best...

Thanks for the quick reply. When I was in the hospital, they did scans that showed the damage. Besides a nasty concussion, I had a right frontal subderal hematoma and a sub arachnoid in the middle part. I haven't had one since to see lasting damage.

What do you mean by "become your diagnosis"? I try not to overthink things or make up things that are not there. Things simply keep getting worse (or better at the time haha).

I think many docs are hesitant to stick us with a hard diagnosis, because there are so many variable factors for diagnosing disorders with similar sets of symptoms... they may feel they need to observe us for a longer period of time before making a hard diagnosis in order to make a more accurate diagnosis. Possibly even more so when TBI is involved.
Also, such a diagnosis could actually contribute to the patients mood/health worsening, or scare the patient into never coming back, etc.
Yet at the same time they have to put some kind of diagnosis in our records in order to bill for services.
I had a major TBI from a car crash, literally bled to death internally and suffered oxygen deprivation in the brain before they started a blood transfusion and resuscitated me, at age 24
But I think I had my first breakdown at 18, and we're pretty sure my often-institutionalized-for-electroshock-therapy grandmother had it, too.
Then I was incorrectly diagnosed as anxiety disorder at age 31, then finally correct dx of Bioplar at age 42. A lot of years wasted, as my life has been a trainwreck.
Bottom line for me, is that I have to avoid the pigeon superstition of trying to figure out how, when or why. And I try not to "become the diagnosis" by internalizing it, like I don't say I "am" bipolar, I say that I "have" bipolar. This site might explain better:
http://psychcentral.com/lib/bipolar-dis ... s/00017516
I just focus on what it's gonna take to live my best possible life from here forward.

I have had a few intense impacts to my head, none of them serious enough to cause a concussion. Fights, accidents, games, all have resulted in some sort head impact on my part at one point

I'm gal you survived all of that. I was not nearly that bad. Although they did snow me, tube me and fly me.

I am still confused about becoming your diagnosis. What does that mean exactly?

Liquid_Entropy wrote:What do you mean by "become your diagnosis"?

People behave and achieve in part due to their self image. If a good kid is told constantly that he is no good, stupid and a low achiever, he will start to see himself this way and behave badly. His self image from what he hears about himself is who he becomes. If an average child is praised, encouraged, and helped to achieve his goals, he will excel. His self image from what he hears about himself is who he becomes.

Read up about bipolar disorder and learn the behaviors, symptoms and treatments. But don't slip into behaving like the lists of symptoms you read. This is when "You become your diagnosis."

Take care,

I believe a head injury triggered my first full mania. I'd existed in a mixed state for years, but it was after hitting my head and getting a concussion, I spiraled out of control and went manic. Took about 6 months for me to get myself to the Pdoc, when I lost control at work and threw files at my boss. So I believe a head injury can precipitate a change in emotional state, but I had bipolar before I hit my head. It's not like the injury caused my bipolar, just set it on a new course. I haven't been the same since, had a second full manic episode 3 years later.

That's good to hear that someone has something similar. It deff would seem it kicked off a whole bunch of issues, bipolar being one. Extreme illitability, poor memory, congnative slowness. It deff changed who I am and how I think.

I was so close to death, sometimes I wish I just fell into the abyss. Would of been much easier. It's nice to know others have the same problem with it kicking off bp tho.

I read somewhere that being exposed to anesthesia early in life can be related to brain development in some ways.. I suppose this may be plausable in explaining a lot about my brain development? (2 surgeries before the age of 5).

Also, when I was around 7, I sufferred a hard smack to the head by a metal baseball bat.. everything was spinning and I really believe that it could have been a factor in my brain's development.