Q:  PCOS & BP/Mood Symptoms- Update

After surfing around tonight, I came across this site and the Q&A about the connection b/w Bipolar and PCOS.  I thought you might appreciate knowing that I am completely convinced of the connection.  I am a 35 yr old who was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 years ago and after many trials of the wrong meds was put on Depakote.  This was great.  Then I stopped so I could try to conceive my 2nd child.  6 mos. later, I was diagnosed with PCO and told I was not ovulating.  We are still trying and about to move on to IVF. I also read about a suspected causal relationship b/w Depakote and PCO.  When I was a child I was diagnosed with borderline Petit Mal. (among many other behavioral clues)   I believe I had Bipolar Disorder my whole life, and possibly PCO as early as puberty(looking back I can think of symptoms possibly related. I always had terrible PMS problems, tantrums, acne, weight problems. No one knew what the heck was the matter with me).  But the PCO was non-traditional because I was still ovulating.  But after taking Depakote, my symptoms worsened.  It just all makes too much sense to me now to be a coincidence.  My question to you is first, can you provide any more insight on the possible link between these disorders? And since all of my doctors (even the RE) are clueless, do you know of any doctors in the NY,NJ,CT area who are also onto this hunch and basically experts in this area????? 

Glad to see a light in the tunnel,  
 Jennifer
 

Hello Jennifer -- 
More insight on the link:  if you haven't found it yet, there's a much-updated version of the story of the connection between PCOS -- and "metabolic syndrome", it's older, larger cousin -- and bipolar disorder/mood symptoms, on my site under "metabolic syndrome".  

After that, though, it's all guessing, and I'm not aware of any doc's who are routinely incorporating this kind of connection-thinking into their practice (in that respect it was nice to see the relative endorsement of the general idea from Dr. Manji, which you'll see via the above pages if you follow the links, and which was supplied to us by one of the regulars (HB) on this very website!). 

However, I think you'll see from that essay that the light is getting brighter -- as though there really is something out there.  Stay tuned. 

Dr. Phelps

Published April, 2003