Bipolar

My bipolar expedition
A personal story published in the BMJ.

I first stepped, blind, shoeless, and alone, on to the rough and winding road that is bipolar disorder 16 years ago when I was 16 and in my final year at school.

The latest Mania: Selling Bipolar Disorder

This evidence of benefit for one agent (lithium) and possible benefit for one more (olanzapine) must be weighed against two harms associated with use of antipsychotics: (1) a consistent body of evidence indicates that regular treatment with antipsychotics in the longer run increases mortality [22–26]; and (2) there is evidence that in placebo-controlled trials of antipsychotics submitted in application for schizophrenia licenses there is a statistically significant excess of completed suicides on active treatment [27]. A range of problems associated with antipsychotics, from increased mortality to tardive dyskinesia, never show up in the short-term trials aimed at demonstrating treatment effects in psychiatry.