Kyle: Now Dr. Sportelli you and I just finished filming an entire series on this incredible topic of bipolar disorder. How did you feel it went?
Dr. Sportelli: I think it went amazingly well but the one word that I have for the audience and for you is important. It’s important and again I’m going to say this again, Kyle I am on the front lines of behavioral health every day.
I am there on the inpatient units and in the emergency department and I see how people are so confused and they’re so desperate for information and they don’t know where to go. They don’t know who to seek for treatment. They’re confused about the treatment they receive. They’re confused about their diagnosis. They don’t know what steps to take.
You know when you look at statistics for bipolar disorder and you read something about the mortality and the morbidity…the person with bipolar disorder will die 15 years younger than the person that does not have bipolar disorder.
Their life expectancy is 15 years. Now less.
Imagine if this was a medical illness like cardiovascular disease or diabetes… it would make the front page. So you have to understand how significant this is. People are suffering and they need help and they don’t know where to get that help and that’s what this is for. I’m just so happy to be a part of it and that’s why I use that term important.
When you look at statistics for bipolar disorder, you’re looking at – on an annual basis – about 6 million people are suffering from this disorder. And this disorder is debilitating. 80% of the people with bipolar disorder will deem it substantially debilitating in their life. It’s a significant disability.
So this isn’t just a disease that people are going about their lives and just dealing with as a nuisance. 80% or more consider it debilitating.
What To Do When The System Is Broken
Kyle: And in this series you took us all the way through the process from: how to spot the signs in yourself if you think you might have bipolar disorder, how to spot the signs in others, how to spot the signs in your kids, how to find the right type of treatment, what those treatments look like, what medications you can expect to be offered or at least consider all the way to keeping any other comorbid issues like addiction run so prevalent and I didn’t realize that with bipolar disorder.
Keeping those issues at bay as well. The other thing that is so frustrating for me, as someone who talks to all these mental health professionals, is that the current system is broken.
Most people search, pay, and pray. They go online and they search for information that may or may not be accurate or correct then they pay the first person that they can find to help them. The first therapist. The first group therapist…whatever it is…and then they just hope that they’ve made all the right decisions and it’s hard if you’re not properly educated.
That’s why I love that you just gave me and you will give the viewers such a great education on this misunderstood disorder.
Dr. Sportelli: And Kyle… I’m here to tell you that an educated patient, an empowered patient, an educated family will without a doubt have a better prognosis.
And that’s just in the education. It’s not in the treatment. it’s being aware of the illness and how to go about it. You’re going to have a better prognosis just in that and I’m a witness of that broken system because I see it every day.
What we have here in the United States is not enough providers for behavioral health and an overwhelming need and that’s a crisis. There are areas in this country that don’t have any behavioral health.
This is going to bring it to everybody and we’re going to empower people with that information to change their lives. I thought of something before, when we talked to Doug…I said this and I really believe this: that just by this, people can go from feeling hopeless to hopeful and that’s enough.
If you go to your physician or your treatment provider and you are educated on the comorbid issues and the treatment options, you’re going to get better faster.
Kyle: You say it so well.
A Preview of MedCircle’s Bipolar Disorder Series
I want to give people a quick preview of some of my favorite parts from the series so guys take a look at this…
Dr. Sportelli: If you’re diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I need you to keep track of your daily rhythms. The time you go to sleep. The time you wake up. The times that you eat. Your daily rhythms are so so important and if family, or you, notice that something is changing all of a sudden – like, “I go to bed at 9:00. You know what? I’m just not tired tonight and it’s not because I slept in this morning. I’m just not tired. Oh…that happens 2-3 days in a row…I don’t need to sleep. Wait a second…maybe I’m getting into a manic phase.”
If you’re a parent or a family member or a spouse and your loved one is sitting up doing a project three nights in a row, which is completely out of character for them, something’s going on…
Kyle: I want to do something a little off the cuff here.
The founder of MedCircle, Doug Colbeth has bipolar disorder. He’s here and I don’t know if he wants to do this, but it’s silly for me as someone who doesn’t have bipolar disorder to sit here and talk about it when we have somebody who has been very open about it.
So can we get him mic’d up? I can just squeeze out because there are things that he can share that I can’t. Sorry to do this, but I’m not that sorry either.
Doug Colbeth: One of the reasons I was very interested in starting MedCircle was quite frankly personal. I was diagnosed bipolar at the ripe old age of 37 and it was late. It was way too late.
People always say to me, “Oh my God. What was your childhood like? What was your adolescence like? What were your college years like? What about your early years as a young married fellow with a beautiful daughter and then a beautiful son?
And my life was out of control until really about 37 years old. The reason I want to talk a little bit about it is I think I want to help not just the Bipolar person who is experiencing all these horrific things, but let’s not forget about all the loved ones around them who have experienced a lot of pain.
Kyle: And that’s just some of the things that we discussed during this incredible series on bipolar disorder.
What Exactly Is Bipolar Disorder?
A lot of people don’t know what bipolar disorder even is. They have the wrong conception. So what is bipolar disorder?
Dr. Sportelli: Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that is pretty much classified with incredible highs and possibly incredible lows. So much so that it affects your behavior, affects your thinking and your activity level. It affects your sleep and changes your behavior in a negative way that’s really affecting your life substantially.
This is not the regular ups and downs that normal people experience.
Kyle: I was shocked to learn that nearly 70% of bipolar patients were first misdiagnosed with depression.
Dr. Sportelli: Yeah, it’s incredibly common.
Kyle: You can’t get better if you’re treating the wrong thing.
Dr. Sportelli: Absolutely not. And bipolar disorder is one of the leading causes of disability in the United States. A person will seek treatment for years before they get the proper diagnosis in some cases.
Kyle: What is your big hope that somebody with bipolar disorder or they think they have bipolar disorder gets from this series?
Dr. Sportelli: A better understanding of the illness itself and the treatment possibilities.
Maybe someone heard something in this series that they go, “Wow I need to try that. I didn’t know that and you know what I’m going to ask my doctor about that.” It’s about the families. It’s about the patients but you know what else?
I’m going to say this as a doctor. I want the doctors to be accountable too. I want the patients to ask doctors questions. So if you have a question for your doctor that came up tonight bring it up with your doctor. They need to teach you. They need to explain things. Hold them accountable.
“Normal” Mood Swings vs. Bipolar Disorder
Kyle: There is a lot of misconception as well on what just constitutes a normal mood – the high and low of happiness and sadness and how that compares to bipolar disorder.
Can you give our viewers some information and traits on how those two are different?
Dr. Sportelli: Yeah so first and foremost it’s important to recognize that we are human. We are going to be sad and we’re going to be excited, elated and euphoric. We’re going to have these normal ups and downs reactive to our lives.
If we’re getting married, we’re going to be happy. Hopefully… If we lost our job, we’re going to be upset. We’re reacting to our environment, right? But there’s sort of limits. If you come and go and it’s okay and you adapt to your environment and it doesn’t affect your life long-term or down the road in a negative way…
It’s not really affecting your job or your marriage, your relationships, your family, your peers… you can sort of deal with it. You can cope with it.
With bipolar disorder, in a lot of cases, there’s really no rhyme or reason to that switch from a euphoria to severe depression and number two – the intensity of that mania or the intensity of the depression is far worse than what the average person would feel on a day-to-day basis.
The other important thing is duration.
It’s going to last much longer than the average ups and downs that you and I experience on a day-to-day basis.
Kyle: Great information.
You can access more of this information right now when you visit MedCircle.com and start your journey on mental health.
I love your sentiment of not being helpless, but being hopeful. Not being hopeless, but being hopeful. That sums it up so much and there’s so much hope there when you understand what this actually is and you know the next right step to take.
Dr. Sportelli: That’s the foundation.
Kyle: And you gave them all of that in this series, which gives me so much relief to know that people out there are going, “I don’t know what to do.” Know that there’s hope and here’s what you do. That’s what you provided in this series. Excellent.
Any last words to our viewers before they go to medcircle.com and keep watching you?
Dr. Sportelli: Mental illness should never be a stigma and you’re going to be okay. You’re going to be alright.
Kyle: Well said.
Thank you guys for watching this. We get more in depth with actionable insight and advice in this bipolar disorder series available at MedCircle.com.
