Bipolar disorder in children?

Question

I'm going to do an essay on bipolar disorder in children. Can anyone tell me a little about it? Is it the same as in adults? What are appropriate medications? How can the parents help the child? Anyone have any personal experience with bipolar kids or bipolar people in general? Thanks!

Answer 1

what exactly do you mean in children?  adolescence? bipolar disorder dose not appear any earlier then teen years.  

I dont mean to be rude and i do sometimes get a little too technical, so i am just making it clear i am just speaking in the technical sense here, you cant be diagnosed with bipolar until youre 15 and 16 in some states.  So even though they have it on paper and people are on medication a lot of time they are not officially diagnosed.  also bipolar disorder is seen earlier in males in a lot of cases.  a lot of meds have multiple purposes... anti-psychotic, mood stabilizer, anti-compulsive, and since they all seem to make most people tired sleep.

Answer 2

I'm assuming you classify children as people under 18 so I'm going to answer your question from my own experience.

I'm 16 and I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and currently take lithium to treat it. There are a lot of symptoms with bipolar disorder not every person who has it has every symptom (obviously) although the main symptom that everyone has is manic depression. Although I think it gets worse as you get older. Of course adults and children don't react the same I think it's worse in teenagers and adults more than younger children. I've been depressed since I was 11, but wasn't diagnosed with Bipolar until I was around 13. I also have other disorders too. Most medications I know of that treat Bipolar Disorder also treat Schizophrenia. Medications I took/take for bipolar were Risperdal, Depakote, Seroquel, Lithium, Trileptol, & Abilify. Might be spelling errors not sure, didn't check. Hope that helps. :)