★★★★★
★★★★★
I know this sounds crazy and totally off the wall, people probably will doubt me, and think I'm nuts but overdosing on garlic, it cured my bipolar disorder. I took aged garlic tablets. I have read about garlic causing brain changes it can be very toxic in high doses. When I was taking the aged garlic tablets I took 3 pills with each meal 3 times a day. During the time I could feel lots of zinging zaps in my brain, my brain did feel as though it was changing like. I also felt like a splitting type of feeling in my head. I believe that the sulfur and other compounds in the garlic can change brain cells. Garlic is a very potent compound and used to reverse and repel many things, so I believe it can reverse and repel bipolar disorder as well. I did end up with an anemic reaction from too much garlic and ended up in the ER though, but at the cost of my bipolar disorder being cured. I believe the people who eat garlic and the countries which eat large amounts of garlic do have less incidence of mental illnesses/disorders. I know it is toxic in high doses, but this could possibly be a cure, it did fix me. My bipolar was very severe I tried every medication and even considered electroconclusive therapy. I'm not saying that my bipolar is 100% cured but I would say it is 90%. I am no longer dealing with suidicidal thoughts, mood swings, depression, anger fits, etc. I am very calm. I wish there would be more medical research done on the compounds in garlic for bipolar disorder. As toxic as lithium and Depakote are, this is something to look into.
Just be wary though cause too much of the garlic can cause anemic reactions but I hear there are some special tropical fruits which can prevent it for those who want to take garlic daily for the health benefits.
Detox
★★★★★
With that said, MOST illnesses I believe, including Cancer (look at Essiac Tea), Fibro and BiPolar is due to a toxicity, deficiency and lack of good nutrition or at least nutrition that makes it where it needs to go on a cellular level. Most processed foods CLOG the body to the point where it can't ABSORB the nutrition FROM the foods that we consume, if even it WERE good for us.
The answer in most cases is to DETOX as a regularity and to supply your body with a nutritional boost of some kind (specific to your symptoms) to offset the rest.
Cheers, rcohen
Fenugreek
★★★★★
Flax Seed Oil
★★★★★
In case you are curious, I weigh 50 kg, age 31. I take about 1-2 tablespoons of flax oil daily with my breakfast oatmeal. I also take niacin @100 mg after every meal, making around 300mg/day. I take it along with a B-complex. Both niacin & flax oil are indispensable to my normal functioning. Missing either one will set me in trouble. Hope this helps any of you.
Lifestyle Changes
★★★★☆
-Exercise
-Eat a proper diet
-Incorporate Scheduled Relaxation time into your life
-Have a morning and evening routine
-Learn to be organized
-Don't take yourself too seriously
I have also found that marijuana kicks me into mania. I was in denial for a while because I like smoking and mania can be really fun, inspiring and significant, but weed induced manic episodes ultimately threw off my routine too much and put me behind in the more important things in life. So, rule of thumb... Be wary of the weed. Its ok once in a while, but the mania can last well past the few hours after smoking. It's kept me up all night and into the morning through the next day. In college, it can often be normal to be smoking 1, 2, 3 times a week- that just doesn't work if it makes you manic. Cut back. Once a month. Once every three weeks.
You get the picture. When slipping into a manic episode, I have found the following tips helpful:
-do not write emails, send letters, leave comments online, or call someone you normally wouldn't call because what you'll end up writing/saying is likely to be unusual, and you will regret it once you come down. If you really want to communicate, write it down, save it for later when you cool down. -don't spend money. Don't go near a store, don't look at any online shopping sites. -stay off the internet, in general
-don't go to bars/parties, and do not have sex with anyone that you're not currently in a sexual relationship with. Just go masturbate if the horny takes over. -be wary of driving, cooking, lighting candles, operating machinery... Anything that could burn down your house, cause an accident, etc. Mania leaves you pretty absent-minded. -occupy yourself with doing something you like! Don't fight the episode and try to function normally through it. Take a deep breath, admit that your manic, then go make some art, dance, sing, hang out with a friend, workout, listen to music/audiobook, etc. Similar tips for if you're depressed. Make sure to call a friend for help if you need it. If you're feeling suicidal, call a friend for suicide watch. They can just hang out at your place/you go to theirs and chill. They just need to keep an eye on you is all. I also find that taking a really hot shower or burying myself in lots of blankets and overheating can help quell the depression, like literally sweating it out. I'm considering eating a decent amount of cyanne pepper next time I'm depressed- seeing as it heats and stimulates- to bounce out of depression I feel like one needs some kind of a kick. It's probably a good idea to pick a few friends you can count on and tell them about your condition and how to handle it if you come asking for help. And something many readers might not agree with:
-Take your medication as prescribed
Now I know, no one wants to be taking pharmaceutical mind control drugs- eek!! BUT... I find that with the right medicine, taking a pill can make life a lot less stressful, traumatic, hectic, wild, depressing... Etc. I don't plan to stay on my medicine indefinitely, but I consider medicine a valuable tool to help keep you stable as you learn life skills and find a living situation that works for when you go unmedicated. I view it as the lesser of two evils. Medicine helped clear my mind, helped me in therapy to work out all the demons my mind was plagued with from years of my body kicking me with depressed phases. (self confidence, self hatred, negative attitude, etc. )
BUT.. Its very important to find the RIGHT medicine. Thats where tracking the mood becomes vital. I went through a roulette of antidepressants, anti anxiety and add drugs because I didn't have a clear picture of my own situation. Bipolar people, as a rule of thumb, are NOT supposed to take antidepressants. You can get away with a mix of a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant, but if you don't have a mood stabilizer, the antidepressant can kick you into a crazed, off the charts manic episode. Which happened to me. Not to mention that starting the antidepressant can make you uber depressed and suicidal too. Bottom line: track your moods, be wary of ANYTHING other than a mood stabilizer. ***
Love to all the bipolars out there- they say it's a "disorder", but no one has the right to label you in any way. So forget the negativity. Accept yourself and appreciate the fact that most of the general population will never know the depth of emotion that we do. For all the depression we suffer, a good day means more to us than most. For all the mania, we brim with life and energy unlike most. I consider myself blessed.
Acetyl L-Carnitine
★★★★★
EC: More info about this supplement on our L-carnitine page.
★★★★★
Flax Seed Oil
I always advise taking Omega 3's w/ Selenium & Vit-E for the greatest benefit.
Also, a major problem with Flax is storage. Flax oil must be kept cool & dark and not exceed the expiration date. If not, the "rancid" oil will make one sick.
Flax Seed Oil
It seems with regulated sleep, at least 7 hours every 24 hours bi-polar conditions do not exist. He believes that the Doctors Medication had him completely overweight and mind fogged. No side effects! I am speaking from experience.
Lithium Orotate, Lithium Aspartate
★★★★★
Gaba and Lithium Aspartate
★★★★★
Olive Oil
★★★★★
Flax Seed Oil
Our food is being engineered to last longer. The animals we eat and get milk or eggs from are being fed GMO grasses and grains. Because everyone eats differently, everyone is going to react differently. I think anyone with an egg or dairy allergy/sensitivity is due to what those critters are being fed now. We get 2% milk. "Grass-fed" and/or "free-range" are terms that are deceptive and really don't make a difference anymore. "Non-GMO" is impossible just because of wind and bird droppings. Infiltration cannot be avoided.
I believe many of the farmers are sincere in what they're trying to raise or produce but are genuinely unaware of what has happened to our food supply.
My husband and I cannot eat whole wheat without having a problem with anger. My husband is affected by any wheat products. We do better if I get the unbleached white flour products. Nothing with any flavoring (no tasty crackers or cookies). I cannot eat plain yogurt because it makes me extremely agitated. Our daughter noticed and brought it to my attention.
I had been hospitalized twice for depression. Once in the early 70's and once in the early 80's. Over the last two decades we've had to change our way of eating and it has not been an easy endeavor. Reducing my meat and egg portions (more difficult for husband), cooking all vegetables until tender and only getting vegetables canned, without salt or frozen because they have been blanched is not as quick and easy as fast food or processed but safer. Only using RealSalt, purchased from the health food store and staying away from all added salt in anything because there is a flowing agent in that salt that I strongly believe is the culprit for many ailments. We get real butter (any store brand) without salt.
I get canned fruit in its own juice. Sometimes I get "fresh" blueberries and freeze them. Never bananas anymore. They have been cloned for several decades.
I know this may be a lot to digest but it is what I have had the opportunity to learn since my retirement. We have been desensitized to what has been going on for, at least, sixty years. It's been tough and took awhile to clean up my system the best I can.
I have been amending this, just about, all day but feel I've left something out. I hope it helps you identify what may be causing your difficulty. I can tell you that alcohol will deplete the B vitamins you need for your nerves and the troubles will never go away. You only numb them for awhile. I have been there and done that too.
Flax Seed Oil
Flax Seed Oil
★☆☆☆☆
WARNING!
I can tolerate Omega 3s in fish oil but not flax oil or flax mixed with cottage cheese. Not many people seem to know this side effect of flax that effects like 1% or so of users but somewhere online I came across it after already experiencing it myself. Most people aren't bothered.
Yoga Breathing
★★★★★
As a yoga breath therapist I have recently healed a young lady of bipolar disorder. My site is www.thespiritualkey.com .
★★★★★
Blue Light Therapy
Using blue light for "light therapy"
As you probably know, there's a version of depression called "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD), or "winter depression". This kind of depression -- which is very common in people with Bipolar II -- can be treated with light. Plain old light will do, but in some parts of the country in December plain old light is hard to come by So several decades ago researchers studied whether sitting in front of a bank of lights for 30-60 minutes might help reverse the seasonal sag in mood, and found that indeed some people seemed to respond very well. In the most recent study of "light therapy", sitting in front of a box of light every morning during a Canadian winter was as effective as fluoxetine (Prozac).
But the light needed for this, from a suitcase-sized "light box", was hard to get: insurance companies almost never pay for these boxes, which are expensive, usually around $250-300. They are not very portable.
However, now a very small light box is available for around $140 (e.g. from Costco last winter) that's much more portable, so you can use it where you happen to be in the morning. The key was finding just the right wavelength of light for this purpose, which allowed the box to be much smaller. I hope you already know, from the story above, what wavelength that is: blue light -- the striped peak in the graph above, which comes from the manufacturer's website (I have no financial connection to that manufacturer, and get no gain from telling you this story. I'm telling it here because I think it's a great story, and because understanding it may help people get an effective treatment they might not have considered otherwise).
This little light box has been tested for effectiveness just as the older bigger light boxes have, and shown to be superiorGlickman to the "control" condition -- a dim red light, admittedly not the greatest control condition, but this research has been hard to do, coming up with a plausible "placebo" treatment. A better test would be a comparison of the blue light versus white light, which might be more plausible as a placebo, as the older light boxes emit a white light. That study has been done, and the blue light was superior (not yet published, the manufacturer tells me, as of June 2006). The best test would be a head-to-head study of the little blue one versus one of the older big ones, which we know from years of research are truly better than a placebo. But the blue-light manufacturers have little incentive to do that study (what if theirs was not as good?), so we're not likely to see that research unless one of the manufacturers of the old light box pays for it!
link http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/BlueLight.htm
EC: For more information on this remedy, please see our Blue Light Therapy page.
Olive Oil
Lifestyle Changes
