Hello, Colecan, and welcome to the Bipolar Forum, You may need
to continue to post for a while as your wife recovers, and she will come back to a more healthy lifestyle.
She has a strong chemical imbalance that the doctors are going to need to stabilize; once that's done, they will prescribe the appropriate medication for her to keep her stable and will, in all likelihood, ask her to change her diet in several ways.
1. She will be asked to avoid alcohol; it makes bipolar illness and depression worse.
2. She will be asked to remove caffeine from her diet completely, because it makes the illness worse (depression, also). That means no more coffee, chocolate, tea or anything else containing caffeine.
3. Some changes in her dietary food allowances may be called for, as well. Doctors know now that bipolar illness is an inflammation of the brain and that aspirin will help to alleviate some of the symptoms for some people. They do not know yet what causes the inflammation, but you may be sure they are working on it. Aspirin does not supersede the use of prescribed medications for the illness; she will need to take a mood stabilizer probably for as long as she lives.
4. The largest proportion of serotonin receptor sites are not in the brain as has been thought in the past; the far greater percentage are in the digestive system, so it's going to be a challenge for you to help her
change her diet to a more alkaline state than to maintain a high acid-reacting diet containing such things as cheese, milk products, white flour products, sugar, and too much meat (meaning avoid having it every day--just cut back to perhaps 4 days per week and not at every meal.)
5. Two websites may be helpful for you to learn which foods are alkaline in reaction and which ones are acid-reacting. They are alkalinefoods.com and acid-reactingfoods.com The lists will become familiar to you as you print copies and think about
it from time to time when helping her plan meals. Have a salad every day, please. There is more to learn about
trying to keep a slightly higher alkaline state of food in your diet than acid-reacting ones.
6. She is going to need to try to reduce the stress in her life. She may not know at this point what is causing it.
7. Chances are your wife has some giftedness that she needs to be encouraged to develop or engage in as a hobby. Quiet relaxation time should be added to her life.
8. Try not to worry; the illness can be controlled and often people become far happier and enjoy life much more completely after treatment. In women, the illness may often appear after going through the change of life. For others, it may be a lifelong condition that folks learn how to manage (often better than some folks who have no obvious chemical imbalance). Just a teaspoon of medication daily may bring her back to her happy, functioning self.
Keep the faith.
It's Genetic
Post Edited (It's Genetic) : 9/4/2011 12:43:51 PM (GMT-6)