More and more often a new patient treated by another doctor is brought to me beacause patient is showing manic behaviors like – hypertalkativeness, not sleeping, irritability etc. As I look for cause it turns out that a doctor began patient on antidepressant with inadequate examination of patient’s own or family history suggestive of possible mania. I have treated many of such patients and fixed their grief.
Antidepressant is linked with an increased risk of mania, was reported as findings in the online June 17 American Journal of Psychiatry – http://www.psych.org
The study involved 3,240 patients with bipolar disorder who were identified using Swedish national registries and were categorized in two groups—those receiving antidepressant monotherapy and those treated with an antidepressant as well as a mood stabilizer.
Several patients receiving antidepressants treatment became manic.
Lesson here is that a good psychiatric evaluation where doctor spends 45 minutes or more on history can be highly beneficial in avoiding medication induced manic crisis.
