BP Depression vs. MDD

[Loon-A-TiK]

i've heard that bp depression and mdd are different somehow. if this is the case, then how are they different?

[Glen]

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/418725

Bipolar II patients scored higher on suicidal thoughts, guilt, depersonalization, derealization, hypersomnia, and weight gain

Strictly unipolar major depressives had more psychic anxiety and insomnia

Unipolars on various self-assessment (eg, Multiple Analog Visual Scale for bipolar in the Ahearn-Carroll scale) scored higher in terms of slow thinking, no energy, feeling worst, avoiding risks, perception of life as dull and dreary. Indeed, psychomotor retardation was highest in unipolars, and this difference appeared most significant when compared with bipolar II depression.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/conten...tract/163/2/225

RESULTS: Bipolar depression was associated with family history of bipolar disorder, an earlier age at onset, a greater previous number of depressive episodes, and eight individual symptom items on the Montgomery-

[seven]

I've also read that bipolar depression tends to be atypical depression...much along the lines of what glen has already outlined.

[Loon-A-TiK]

sometimes i look at those "are you depressed?" self-assessments for people to see if they should see the doctor and i laugh- is that me? no, no, and maybe...i'm depressed but this doesn't describe me really...

[LikeMinded]

I've also read that bipolar depression tends to be atypical depression...much along the lines of what glen has already outlined.

I've also thought that, going along what researchers have said about there being a "manic-depressive spectrum", that atypical depression and BP-II were just 2 sides of a continuum, atypical depression being subject to only a few minutes of hypomania at a time.

Essentially, they're both the same disorder, just of different "mood amounts".

I'm a little biased though, since I had what was definitely atypical depression until 2 years ago, at which point I "converted" to being bipolar-II. "Converted" just means that I had hypomania that the DSM judged to be long enough to qualify me as BP-II. It's circular.

I can tell you right now that I have had the same, single disorder all along, the hypomania being more pronounced and prolonged in BP-II than in atypical depression. (In my case though, a good deal more prolonged, I think that had to do with meds.)

[resonance]

When I was in high school I would see the first advertisements for antidepressants on TV, and I wished my problem was depression, but I knew it wasn't because the people they portrayed were fine before they got depressed. How wonderful that would be, I thought, to have periods of being normal.

I did get my wish eventually.

[LikeMinded]

When I was in high school I would see the first advertisements for antidepressants on TV, and I wished my problem was depression, but I knew it wasn't because the people they portrayed were fine before they got depressed. How wonderful that would be, I thought, to have periods of being normal.

The thing that got me really annoyed is how they (namely Pfizer, with the drug Zoloft) portrayed the patient getting better after treatment.

I hated that bouncy little dot thing from the start, anyways.