Bipolar Ii Disorder And Celiac

[Guest missyflanders]

Hi. I was wondering if there is a link between bipolar II and celiac. 2 years ago, while pregnant, I was diagonosed with celiac after many problems. At the same time, I was told I had depression. Now, after two years of med changes etc, they have determined it is actually bipolar II. SInce they started around the same time, just wondering if there is a link

Missy

[watkinson]

Hi Missy,

My youngest daughter was missdiagnosed about 8 years ago with ADD. After years of suffering terrible mood swings, she started cutting, that's when we realized it was something more than ADD. A phychiatrist spoke with us only a few minutes before he realized the proper diagnoses. She has been on proper meds. since and is doing great. But...coincidentally... she has also had stomache problems since she was very little. I and my older daughter were diagnosed 1 year ago (me) and 7 months ago (her) with celiacs, so I naturally assumed that the younger one was also a celiac, but her tests came up negative. She carried the genetic gene but does not show that she is presently suffering from it. After doing some research, I have found that all kinds of psychiatric problems (ranging from depression, to bi-polar disease to downs syndrome, to autism, ect., ect.) are definately related to celiacs disease. In many cases people with these disorders are tested and found to be celiacs, or are allergic to wheat or just plain improve when wheat is taken out of the diet. I am contiually amazed at the related problems with celiacs. We will have our daughter checked every year since celiacs can take effect any time. Look at the celiac.com web site at related disorders they actually have papers on the corolation between celiacs and bi-polar disease. Hope your doing better.

Wendy

[mommida]

I read in some of those papers that bi-polar patients will have an improvement on a gluten free diet. I was scanning through quickly and can not elaborate on "improvement". The gluten free diet is now reccomended for many other medical situations.

L.

[skbird]

Hi -

I was diagnosed as bipolar II when I was 24 after I responded to depakote. I had been treated for depression for a year or so by then and nothing was doing anything for me. Depakote was the only med that actually helped me out at all, but I also ended up gaining 70 pounds while on it (nearly 2 years) which all doctors said couldn't happen. I was even on social security disability for a while there. I stopped taking the depakote at some point and was rediagnosed as having an anxiety disorder. A few years later I went on a low carb diet and most symptoms resolved. When I went low carb I went mostly gluten free by accident. I added in gluten grains about a year ago (after 2 years mostly off) and started having more symptoms again. It's been 5 months since gluten-free and I haven't had any depression at all, in fact had a friend die recently and was surprisingly un-depressed. I am not sure why that was but it could be that I was so used to my extreme depressions that having a normal one seems weird.

I think they could be linked but I believe in my case my "bipolar II" symptoms were *because* of my multiple food problems, including gluten intolerance.

Stephanie

[watkinson]

Stephanie, I'm so glad you wrote this response. I have been trying to get my daughter to go gluten-free or at least cut down on wheat products for the last year now. She keeps saying she refuses. She is so unbelievably addicted to bready starches. I have to beg her sometimes to eat fruit and vegetables but it seems all she ever wants is starch. I wonder if there is some correlation to the bread stuff making her feel better emotionally? Like chocolate raising serotonin levels. Maybe she eats the bread, cake, donuts, whatever and feels better at first but then the symptoms get worse because her system crashes, so she crashes. I'm going to have her read what you said, maybe you could tell some more about how you felt when you stopped eating gluten. Thanks

Wendy

[skbird]

Hi Wendy -

One of the things that has changed the most is the lack of the deep depressions. I used to feel so depressed all over my body, I identified with big heavy rain clouds, the ones that you learn in school go over the mountains and release all their rain because the mountains and air currents interfere and cause desert on the other side. I felt heavy and full of water, like anything brushing against me would cause me to spring a leak and start sobbing or just lie down on the sofa and bury my head in the pillows, for hours. I wanted to dig a cave and go live in it.

Sugar played a part, too, but not as much, I'm seeing, as gluten. I tend towards mood swings at time, but not like back then. I would go from zero to furious in seconds. But it was mostly the heaviness and lethargy that would get to me. Also I started losing my ability to remember words - I'd be talking and all of a sudden a very typical word would just be gone and I'd have to say, well, I just can't remember that word right now, I'll get back to you when I remember it. I felt like I was going senile, but was only in my mid-20s.

At my worst I was living on pasta, bread, and Shredded Wheat. I would have so little energy that the idea of walking down the stairs and walking three blocks to the store was too much effort. I would drive, saying I didn't want to carry the groceries that far.

I would be so excited by my big bowl of cereal or plate of pasta, I'd eat huge amounts. It felt great to eat it, by the end I'd be numb, tired, full, and ready for a nap or tv watching. I knew people who ate and would be energized, not me.

When I went low carb and stopped all pastas, breads, etc, I felt great - not like I was flying high which I would sometimes after eating a bunch of sugar or drinking coffee, but good, like I could breathe in and feel all the air, and jump up from the table and go off to do something else. I got into walking the dogs, riding my bike, etc. I felt light inside and able to deal with whatever I needed to do. And I found I could talk in complete sentences with only the very rare losing of a word mid-sentence, something I see all my friends do on occasion. I could also think about things like politics and make reasonable arguments, even win some, which I had never been very good at unless I had time to sit down and write out my thoughts. And my sense of humor came back.

I remember what it was like very well, I know how it felt, but I have no idea of how to get back there. It's like I said about the friend dying and I was sad but not totally wrecked the way the smallest things used to make me feel, like being out of cereal in the morning. Huge difference!!!

If you have more specific questions, please let me know...

Stephanie

[watkinson]

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for the great response. This is the first day I have been on line since last thurs. I can't wait for my daughter to read all this. Everything you wrote, about the rain clouds, the heaviness, the lethargy, the inability to concentrate, the forgetting words, or what you are talking about, going from zero to furious in seconds... all of it reminds me of her. She started out when she was first diagnosed by taking Lithium. It worked well at first but then kinda stopped. She was changed to Lamictal, which has worked wonders. She is doing so great, but I just feel that she would do even better if she went gluten-free. I definatley agree with you about sugar, I think that is also a big culprit.

Wendy

[skbird]

Hi Wendy -

I hope reading some of that helps your daughter out. It's hard to hear when it's going on because it's in your body and your mind and you made it happen, so why would anything anyone else tells you be relevant? But then again I got obsessed with all these celebrities who were also bipolar, Patty Duke, Robin Williams, for examples, and would read up on them and their stories to see if they resonated with me at all. And they rarely did, though some of the feeling were similar.

I was given lithium for a time *while* being on depakote but saw no difference so it was stopped after a couple of months. I don't know why the depakote helped me at all, honestly, but it did, I even stopped it for a couple of months and then went back on it after staying awake for three days straight. It helped me get back to sleep and back to my normal patterns.

I hope the day comes when doctors not only recognize these various illnesses but they stop giving meds as their first recourse. It could be all food reactions in some people, as it has appeared to be with me, but yet several years of my life were dedicated to taking this pill or that pill. A lot of times I was really optimistic that *this pill* was going to be the one (when most people were spending time being optimistic that this *person* might be the one for them... weird and sad!) and everything was going to get better, but it never really would. And now I know more as to why.

Take care and best of luck to you and your daughter...

Stephanie

[watkinson]

Hi Stephanie,

I know what you mean about pills! It weems like all doctors want to do is give us a "magic pill". I swear, Doctors don't want us to get well or cured because then they would have no more patients, and at the first sign of illness, insurance companies just want us to die so they don't have to pay for treatment. It's all nuts isn't it?!

I agree that as research moves forward we will discover that sooooo many ailments and diseases are caused by nothing less than food intolerances. I only wish I had discovered it myself years sooner, it would have alleviated many years of torturous suffering for me, Oh well.

Wendy