> I discovered through research that warm weather makes dopamine receptors more sensitive…

Very interesting. Failsafers tend to feel better during the summer and worse during the winter… and in some cases more manic during the summer and more depressive during the winter.

In bipolar, there’s quite a lot of evidence that dopamine highs and lows (rather than serotonin) dicatate the happy/sad states.

So many women I know with bipolar tendencies also have menstrual problems and irregular cycles. There seems to be little info as to *why* online, but I know it’s a noted feature of bipolar. I think it has to do with dopamine fluctuation, as high dopamine causes low prolactin and vice versa. Prolactin can give you irregular periods or even stop them altogether. Prolactin also messes with your sex drive. I’m going to make some posts on bipolar soon that might make the connections all a bit clearer.

Re: failsafe eating. Most people never spot a connection to food before they begin the trial elimination diet. Food chemicals are quite ubiquitous, so it’s very hard to spot a connection. Virtually everyone I know who has been helped by the diet has said they have a problem with carbohydrate/hypoglycaemia etc. There are a number of mechanisms for this. Salicylates, amines, and glutamates all stimulate excess insulin release. The reason chicken produces more insulin than other meats is because the skin is very rich in amines, and sometimes it has been injected or brined in flavour enhancers (glutamates). Skinless chicken is fine.

If you visit my main website, and also the Food Intolerance Network, http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info, these sites will give you all the info you need about the symptoms people get and how to perform the diet.

I think you’re right… my brain doesn’t respond right because of the mood issue.

I have not had a period or a real cycle since august, and the hypomanic side of the coin has gotten heaps better since then. I think the summer, combined with reproductive cycles, it was making me *really* crazy and producing verge-of-mania episodes… I am hopeful that in the fall I won’t worry about the extreme manic/psychotic issues that were trouble in the summer. I discovered through research that warm weather makes dopamine receptors more sensitive… this would explain so much.

As for the loss of the cycle, I don’t know what’s up with that. I think lack of ovulation in august might have been related to decreasing and stopping the st johns wort. In my first post I said I wondered what would happen mood wise/hormone wise if I stopped? I did experiment and taper down and eventually stop over a month’s time. I have come to the conclusion that I think the SJW actually was helping me to ovulate via increased dopamine/serotonin. I eventually did go back on the SJW because my mood slowly was dragging down into miserable depression. I caved in when I found myself crying and thinking about suicide again, never want to go back to that bad. It wasn’t reactionary to previous hypomania, this depression was pure depression. I also was getting hypoglycemia and ravenous hunger which I think might be related to neurotransmitter deficiency from lack of SJW.
Stopping the SJW didn’t really affect my hypomania either way. THe only difference was I was no longer capable of euphoric hypomania and instead I had miserable, miserable mixed states. Mania did not get better until it started getting consistently cold.

When I started the SJW again, my mood gradually picked back up, and I also felt like I might “ovulate” soon because I had a lot of those signs. I had very mild hypomanic symptoms, especially after staying up too late (sleep loss = mania) but nothing extreme like in the summer.

I am very curious about the failsafe eating. I don’t consider myself reactive to food and mostly I just have a carbohydrate problem, but who knows, maybe it will help? I have noticed that foods high in glutamates like tomato sauce really make me hypoglycemic and very chaotic/depressive. I try to avoid tomato sauce as much as possible, it’s definitely bad mojo. I also notice gluten makes me feel numb and apathetic and a little depressive, and I also feel I’m making a lot of mucous after gluten, but only if I eat a lot of it. I also find whenever I eat chicken I can get quite ravenous, but I think that is because chicken produces more insulin than other meats (which I found in a study).
I wish I knew more about foods, symptoms of intolerance, common allergens etc. Do you recommend any websites where I can start learning?

If you have/might have bipolar it’s possible your hormones are normal but what is going on in your brain is an exaggerated reaction to the hormones, what with oestrogen affecting endorphin levels etc.

I’m pretty worried about hypomania. Have you heard of the concept of ‘kindling’? Bipolar is in a sense like epilepsy. Basically, the more ups-and-downs you have, the stronger the malfunctioning parts of your brain become, and the more likely you are to have a major crash or a major manic episode where you might do yourself or others harm. In terms of your brain circuitry, mania and depresssion are equally as bad.

‘Sometimes I have super crazy episodes…’ That doesn’t sound like hypomania to me, that sounds like you’re on the verge of being manic.

Ideally someone who is bipolar needs to be on a diet like me – a combination of a ketogenic diet and a failsafe diet. The failsafe part is very important. I am no longer able to maintain a stable mood and remain symptom-free on a low-carb diet alone. You need to cut out the amines and glutamates (neurotransmitters) and salicylates (which affect neurotransmitters) in your diet too. This WILL fix your depression, I promise you.

Like you, I detest taking pills because I almost always get horrible side effects. I live with the possibility that I will need medicating some day, like a close relative of mine whose condition has recently become serious. Sometimes diet alone can’t fix things because it’s become too out of control, just as in epilepsy.

I’ve come to recognize the estrogen withdrawal state too, in it’s purest form it can be experienced the 2 days after the LH surge. Depressed, lethargic, hungry, yet not sedated or hibernation-like (progesterone is what does the somewhat comforting hibernation/sedation painkiller dope up). The estrogen crash after ovulation is like having the floor pulled out under you. Estrogen crash feels much worse than progesterone dominance (although both feel pretty terrible) because the progesterone stabilizes and numbs the mind. Low estrogen is distinct and hard depression whereas at least with progesterone you’ve your doped up apathy and contentment.

I suspect my estrogen is probably too low so that is causing some of the issues with progesterone; I take st johns wort for depression (though I have mood cycling the primary problem is depressive mood) I’ve come to learn that SJW has a way of lowering estrogen levels. I had the worst symptoms of progesterone dominance when taking 3 tabs/day, when I went down to 2/day things improved dramatically. I am too afraid to stop taking it because it has helped elevate my baseline mood. I suspect if I stopped taking it I would no longer have issues with progesterone dominance (who knows, maybe I wouldn’t need SJW anymore if I raised my baseline estrogen enough? Too afraid to try, though.)

I hear you on the mood cycling, and I can totally relate to your cautions. When I feel “calm happiness” I am shocked, it happens so rarely, I have come to believe it is a choice between some degree of misery *or* a thrilled, agitated, pressured, wired sort of happiness.
I just, find it really hard to be “worried” about hypomania, you know? I look at hypomania as my reward for a lifetime of depression, like the way a worker looks foward to the weekend off. It might be different if I were at risk for prolonged psychotic mania but I don’t see that happening. Since my primary issue is with depressive inhibition, even in my hypomanic states I am no worse than a nerd who got a alcohol buzz going, lol (that is to say, my symptoms are mild even if inside I feel radically different : I laugh louder, talk louder and faster, the worst thing I might do is buy stupid crap and start a fight with family or yell at strangers who are annoying and rude).
Sometimes I have super crazy episodes where I run down the street dancing and I feel *completely* out of control of the energy. Sometimes the energy is so intense, it’s like I’m electrical wires, passive before it, like a conduit for spirits or something. At those times when I am just pouring energy uncontrolled, I do appreciate that hypomania is no better than depression. When the energy is preventing me from even concentrating ont eh smallest task, because my mind is flipping from thing to thing… yea, it’s no better than depression at those times.
Then there are the bitter mixed states that bring what shall be called “psychotic like experiences” (distance from the world, confusion, paranoia, disorientation, imaging things that can’t realistically happen). Oh *god* I hate the mixed states, I always feel I might lose my mind when that happens.

Anyway… I just don’t see another way, you know? I’m totally afraid of medicine (although, I recently heard about “lamictal” and it sounds like absolute god send for someone like me). I find it hard to justify medicine because my symptoms are “mild” and the side effects of bipolar medicine are considerable… if I think progesterone is bad because of the sedation and hunger how the hell can I tolerate a medicine that basically *replicates* what progesterone does to the brain (as in, turning it off, shutting it down, slowing and sedating it). I’m also afraid of depression getting out of hand, since the primary problem has always been depression and not mania.

The ketogenic diet did *wonders* for my mood, though. When I was a fat fatty, I was very emotionally unstable, severely depressed (at the time I never would have thought I had mood cycling… the idea of me having hypomanic symptoms and energy was laughable to me). Within days of starting the ketogenic diet my mood became much more smooth and balanced, and my emotions became brighter. I thought I was cured of depression.
I still eat very low carb, but no longer ketogenic. Sometimes I wonder if I go back to very strict carb restriction to deep ketosis levels (as was the case when I was rapidly losing weight) …maybe it would cure me again? I probably wouldn’t have the discipline to keep that up for life, though, especially when my depression/moods are “manageable enough” on a 60ish carb diet like this.

What you’re describing is very common in bipolar/cyclothymia women. Oestrogen affects dopamine levels. Bipolar women are also prone to irregular cycles and hormonal problems.

I think a number of the negative symptoms you attribute to progesterone are actually caused by oestrogen withdrawal, which causes an endorphin crash and carbohydrate cravings.

I suspect that there is more to the issue of pain perception than just male/female hormones. I too have a higher pain tolerance when I am in a hypomanic/high state.

I do disagree on one point though. This is a point I have been trying to get across to a female relative who is going to have to get medicated for bipolar disorder because it’s becoming so severe (sadly, she can’t stick to ketogenic/failsafe, which I keep trying to explain has fixed the problem for me).

Mania is not good. Mania and depression are two halves of the same problem. The opposite of mania/depression is calmness. It’s calmness you should be aiming for. I know mania feels great when you’re experiencing it, but it can cause you to do rash, dangerous, and impulsive things. People will notice there is something wrong with you and you may lose friendships over crazy behaviour. Mania can rapidly change into anger/irritability and back. Mania is just a sign that you’re unstable and you’re more likely to have a depressive crash in an unstable state than you are in a calm state.

I find it interesting that estrogen reduces pain tolerance. I was aware women are more pain sensitive than men but I believed this might be more of an issue of testosterone having some kind of pain blocking-modifying effect.

I was amenorrhetic (low estrogen) for four years, until recently… I’m learning all about how hormones affect my body lol. One thing I’m discovering is that I *LOVE* estrogen. It makes me manic, and when I’m manic, my pain tolerance is sky high… so for me, it actually works the opposite (estrogen->mania->cracked out pain tolerance). The few days before ovulation, I feel AWESOME and am not as sensitive to the aches and pains. However, estrogen does make me really intolerant of strong smells and sometimes it feels like my senses are magnified 10xs, especially smell and sound. I also totally lose my appetite (which I am not going to complain about, ha).
Even though I get very manic, my ability to fall asleep is the best when estrogen is the highest. Paradox! I do tend to lose out on sleep because of the mania, though.
I also have a freakish ability to actually tolerate glucose and metabolize it for energy like a normal human when estrogen is peaked (I eat a very low carb diet because I don’t use glucose normally).

When my estrogen is low, I’m much more depressive and hypersensitive to pain; my whole body can ache at those times, secondary to the depression. I’m also hungrier and sleep worse and my blood sugar stability is absolute trash.

On the other hand, too much progesterone acts like a vicious tranquilizer-mood stabilizer. It stops me from going manic (or too depressed for that matter) …but I much prefer the manic high of estrogen dominance. With progesterone dominance it’s like I’m in a daze, half asleep at any given time. Ironically, I don’t even sleep well with high progesterone, I develop bad insomnia (even though I”m very tired and lethargic, I just kind of lay around, in a daze, no real rest). I assume the increased stress hormones from progesterone are the reason for the insomnia (I”m very vulnerable to insomnia under stress hormone increase).
I am completely lethargic and want to stay in bed. Not to mention it makes me a horrible food beast, gives me acne, and suppresses my immune system (which probably contributes to the acne, as well as vulnerability to feeling sick).

In summary, give me estrogen plz… progesterone, avoid at all costs! TERRIBLE!

Perhaps I’m different because I’m bipolarish?