Bipolar vs Cyclothymic Disorder

Every day, people are dealing with some form of depression, mania, or a combination of both. There are various symptoms that can occur and alert doctors to diagnose them with some form of a bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric disease. A person will experience various mood swings from mania and hypomania to depression and extreme depression. Those mood swings can also be combined to create an even bigger problem. This disorder usually occurs during late adolescence or young adulthood. It can affect both men and women equally. Bipolar disorder can also be divided into smaller, more precise areas such as bipolar I and bipolar II. The treatment would be a combination of specific drugs like lithium combined with anti-manic or psychiatric drugs to help decrease the effects the episode.

Cyclothymic disorder, on the other hand, is a mood disorder. This disorder has a tendency to look a lot like a person is depressed and stressed out. It can be caused by thyroid complications. If not properly diagnosed, it can develop into a form of bipolar disorder. A person with cyclothymic disorder usually has only one episode, whereas a person with bipolar disorder can have several uncontrollable episodes of mania and/or depression. This disorder more often affects women and occurs frequently in adulthood. The most common treatment is lithium.

Both disorders have similar causes from genetic issues such as thyroid problems, environmental factors, stress, struggles and pressures of life, and so forth. Each disorder is different but linked internally due to the manic and depressive episodes that can occur.