Patterns
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| Tue, 12-12-2006 - 4:08pm |
I've been charting for awhile.
When I was first diagnosed in January 2005, I was following this pattern and approximate timetable:
Hypomanic (4 days) - Depressed (2 weeks) - Baseline. (1 week)
Then I stablized over the summer, fall, and Winter. I went off my Meds in December 2005. Apart from withdrawals my mood remained stable until Summer of 2006. In June, I noticed some unstablizing; so I started taking Fish Oil Supplements. July and August were stable again. September was up and down and all over, no real pattern and no real severity. Then the middle of October hit. I had a hypomanic followed by a depressive. I went i/p and got back on meds.
Then in November it seemed to turn around.
Since then I've followed this pattern and approximate timetable:
Hypomanic (3-5 days) - Baseline (1 week) - Depressed (8-12 days)
But just thought it was interesting that I'm not baseline right after being hypo; instead of falling immediately into a depression.
I'm curious, do you see any patterns to your cycles? Do you have depressions right after manic/hypomanic episodes?


I know I tend to crash right after manic episodes.
I have another pattern: I tend to go manic after a nasty physical illness. That's bad, because I am recovering from the flu and I have a job interview on Friday that includes an audition:0! Then again, sometimes being a little jazzed up at an audition is not bad...
Express!
Beth "Petrouchka"
I also crash really hard after my manic episodes. Although as of late, the depression lasts much longer. I was interested to see what my charts looked like and right now it looks like 3-5 days of mania followed by 12-15 days of depression with a mid (baseline?) of 3-5 days. I also saw that when I am manic, I'm REALLY manic (I actually want to race the stock car instead of working on the chassis, stay up for 24 hours gaming on the computer, and shop until my ExH wallet screams for mercy, etc) and when I crash it physically hurts now.
Keri
I wonder if this flip in patterns is a sign that the meds are trying to work.
*crosses fingers*
I remember, back when I was on Depakote I had only four periods a year. It's hard to tell if that ever changed because I since went on the Pill.
Express!
Beth "Petrouchka"
I haven't really charted my swings, but I know I go from irratable and moody in the morning to happy and giddy by noon and then kind of down by early afternoon and then I start to noticeably pick back up by evening (I am ramping up most of the late afternoon, just not real noticeable until right after dinner), makes getting to sleep kind of difficult sometimes (unless DW helps out {evil grin})....then overall mood is pretty much a 7 day type cycle....I say overall in that my early morning mood will be lower towards the middle of the week and then not so low over the weekend....same goes for the highs, not so high towards the middle of the week and higher over the weekend.
Rapid cycling sucks.
tk