It is important to understand different mental health disorders, including their causes, overlapping symptoms, and distinctions. Understanding these factors can make it easier to tell when you might need professional help regarding a diagnosis or treatment plan.
PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) and Bipolar Disorder are two distinct yet often confused mental health conditions. Understanding both can help determine when you or someone close to you might need to seek a proper diagnosis.
Understanding PMDD
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) is a health condition that affects women. It manifests with physical and emotional symptoms, as well as other abnormalities to:
- Mood
- Behavior
The symptoms are disruptive enough to interfere with daily life, including issues like difficulty concentrating, bloating, fatigue, irritability, sadness, night sweats, and paranoia.
Understanding Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is a mental health disorder that causes individuals to undergo extreme mood swings and can present with manic, hypomanic, or depressive symptoms. These extremes manifest for several weeks at a time, in many cases with individualized triggers and causes. The extreme mood swings are severe enough that they disrupt daily life.
PMDD vs Bipolar Disorder: Key Differences
There are some key differences between PMDD and bipolar.
Duration and Timing of Symptoms
With PMDD, the biggest difference when compared to bipolar disorder is the timing and duration of symptoms. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is when an individual has five or more depression symptoms that take place one or two weeks before their period, symptoms that go away as soon as their period starts.
PMDD is characterized by symptoms like:
- Depressed mood
- Anxiety
- Sleeping problems
- Bloating
- Breast tenderness
- Hot flashes
- Night sweats
- Tension
- Irritability
- Feelings of hopelessness
- Insomnia
- Fatigue
- Appetite changes
- Decreased interest in activities
- Problems concentration
- Feeling overwhelmed most of the time
- Feeling out of control
- Anger
- Paranoia
Bipolar disorder can manifest with manic episodes, hypomanic episodes, or depressive episodes. Some individuals have more than one, though never at the same time. These episodes last for several days or weeks at a time. Understanding a person with bipolar thinks can help you determine when it’s time to get professional help for yourself.
Manic episodes are characterized by extreme mania or elation with irritable behavior, reckless behavior, poor judgment, and things like excessive talking. Hypomanic episodes are very similar but don’t have the same severity.
Depressive episodes look exactly like a major depressive disorder with extreme hopelessness, sadness, or indifference. People are more likely to have any interest in activities they once liked and to struggle with severe changes to eating and sleeping.
Symptom Presentation
When you are comparing PMDD or bipolar, you’ll notice that the symptom presentation is different as well. Symptoms of PMDD manifest directly alongside your ovulation, so you can track the time frame of the symptoms as they start, get worse, and then go away. With a professional diagnosis, you’ll be able to rule out any other potential conditions before finding an appropriate treatment plan.
Bipolar symptoms, on the other hand, do not present with any specific timeline in relation to biological changes.
Triggers and Predictability
When looking at PMDD vs bipolar, there are different triggers and levels of predictability. Bipolar disorder will have individual triggers for the manic or depressive episodes but not nearly as much predictability, with episodes lasting for several weeks or months, often without a lot of warning or any increase in severity while the symptoms are present.
By comparison, PMDD is much more predictable in accordance with a menstrual cycle or ovulation, with symptoms happening at the same time each month and getting progressively worse over roughly the same time frame.
PMDD and Bipolar Disorder: Overlapping Signs
When you look at PMDD vs bipolar, there are many overlapping symptoms and signs that can make it difficult at first glance to distinguish between them.
Shared Symptoms
The shared symptoms of PMDD and bipolar can include the physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms related to mood, such as extreme sadness and hopelessness, eating too much or too little, sleeping too much or too little, and struggling with irritability.
Impact on Daily Functioning
With PMDD and bipolar disorder, there are overlapping signs in the form of the impact on daily life. With either PMDD or bipolar , individuals will feel that their symptoms are strong enough to interfere with daily function.
Emotional and Behavioral Similarities
The emotional and behavioral similarities exist where an individual has a depressive episode associated with bipolar. The depressive symptoms of bipolar have shared behavioral and emotional similarities to those of PMDD, including extreme fatigue, hopelessness, irritability, and changes in eating and sleeping behaviors.
Potential for Misdiagnosis
There is a potential for misdiagnosis with PMDD vs bipolar depending on several factors, such as when a woman schedules her appointment to record symptoms, whether an individual has a history of bipolar disorder in the family, and more. As such, it is important to get a proper diagnosis that looks into things beyond the symptoms themselves, such as the timeline for their manifestation and their severity.
PMDD or Bipolar? Seeking a Proper Diagnosis
Given the overlap with PMDD or bipolar, it is important to seek a proper diagnosis if you have any of these signs.
Importance of Professional Assessment
Seeking a professional assessment for PMDD and bipolar disorder can help in many ways. A professional diagnosis can look into more than just the signs and symptoms themselves, exploring things like the duration of those symptoms, when they tend to manifest, and what your individual triggers are.
Questions about these other facets can help an individual receive an official diagnosis, often combined with things like tracking and monitoring.
Tracking and Monitoring Symptoms
One of the key ways to get a proper diagnosis for PMDD vs bipolar disorder is to keep a journal of the symptoms you experience in accordance with a calendar. As mentioned, PMDD will typically appear one or two weeks before periods and get worse beforehand. So, keeping a calendar related to your ovulation and menstruation, as well as to your symptoms, can help determine whether there is any overlap or whether the symptoms remain no matter your cycle.
Role of Hormonal Testing and Psychological Assessments
In addition to the tracking and monitoring of your symptoms, when you request a diagnosis, your Healthcare professionals will review diagnostic criteria from the DSM for bipolar disorder as well as the diagnostic criteria for PMDD and compare the two.
PMDD and Bipolar Disorder: Treatment Options and Support
There are several treatment options available for both conditions.
Medication for PMDD and Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder symptoms can be managed with things like antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, and even antipsychotics, depending on the types of symptoms. The same medications can be prescribed to help regulate PMDD, including antidepressants and, in some cases, birth control.
Therapeutic Approaches
With PMDD or bipolar disorder, it’s imperative that medication be combined with therapy to help regulate symptoms. Conditions like PMDD and bipolar typically get treated with things like cognitive behavioral therapy, but this is highly individualized.
Lifestyle and Self-Care Strategies
There are also many lifestyle changes and self-care strategies that can be used to control symptoms of both. Lifestyle changes can include improved sleep, mindfulness, stress reduction, increased exercise, and control over eating habits.
Summing Up
Overall, if you are struggling with symptoms of either PMDD or bipolar, it’s important that you seek help from qualified mental health professionals. These professionals can give you an accurate diagnosis and develop individualized treatment plans for you. A deeper understanding of these conditions and where they diverge can promote better mental health outcomes.
