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Old 20-04-2010, 03:08 PM   #1
laclry311
 
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caffeine

sorry, this is probably a stupid question but does anyone else with bipolar disorder have a manic episode lasting for days after they drink something with caffeine in it?

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Old 20-04-2010, 06:15 PM   #2
Fry
 
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Drinking coffee has definitely elevated my mood to the point of at least hypomania in the past and I've read people say that caffeine can set off their mania so I'm pretty sure that it's possible.




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Old 20-04-2010, 08:21 PM   #3
Navas
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I've never had mania so can't comment firsthand but it makes sense that caffeine could induce manic behavior since it's a stimulant. Even those who have no manic or bipolar disorder become somewhat more "manic" when they take caffeine, which is why it's so frequently used as a productivity-booster.

I'd expect other stimulants like (meth)amphetamines, MDMA, cocaine, etc. could also trigger a manic episode in susceptible people.

However, it's also possible that your consumption of caffeine is mainly causing your mania through a sort of placebo effect: i.e. if you notice that the events coincided in one case (even though it might have been a mere coincidence), you expect that they will coincide in subsequent cases and that expectation influences you so as to enter a manic episode.
Of course it might be hard to figure out whether it's primarily the actual effect of caffeine or a placebo. I guess you could test this by having someone give you two outwardly identical substances with one containing a substantial dose of caffeine and the other not, with you of course (and preferably the one assessing your degree of mania also) being blind as to the caffeine content in each case.
But even such a controlled experiment wouldn’t necessarily tell the whole story because your knowledge that one substance would not have caffeine might affect the placebo component of your response in both cases. Having someone outright lie to you about something containing caffeine would be more dispositive, but ethically problematic.

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