Is there a difference in severity between a bipolar depression and depression in ADD? Can people with ADD get into deep, major depressions like those with bipolar? In other words: If a person has had a major, deep depression are they more likely to be ADD or bipolar or both or what? Is "ADD" depression less severe than bipolar depression? Yikes, so confusing....:confused:

A person with ADD can have Bipolar and/or depression. However, people with depression are no more likely to have ADD. (They are comorbid, but not causally related).

That being said, People with ADD and Depression may have a harder time dealing with their depression because of the ADD Symptoms they deal with. The opposite can be true as well btw. Those with ADD and depression may have a harder time with their ADD Symptoms when they are severely depressed.

Did that make sense? :confused:

Also ADD and Bipolar share similar traits s can many times be misdiagnosed for each other..........its a tangled web

I feel all tangled ...lol Chrissy is right, of course :)

sorry Ive been knitting and talking on the phone and typing and.....now wheres the ball of yarn?

< mumbles under 4 layers of yarn > "right here, silly!" How can she miss such a giant ball of yarn???

*pokes the ball like the pillsbury dough boy and hears a muffled giggle under all the layers*

http://www.jsonline.com/entree/image02/dough011602_big.jpg

Thanks Andrew. Please bear with me... I was speaking with a doctor today regarding someone who has had a severe depression and extreme irritability. The person was diagnosed as bipolar II. Then with a second opinion (and Ritalin that pulled the person out of the depression almost immediately) the person was diagnosed as ADD with depression. The first doctor responded that because of the severity of the depression he thought it was a case of bipolar and ADD rather than ADD with depression--and his reason for adding on the bipolar was the severity of the depression. (So sorry if this is too complicated to even touch.) And oh...just one more question...is it possible for depressed ADDers to threaten to commit suicide as much as a bipolar in depression?

Well stimulants will trigger hypomania in bipolar people and we rarely complain about being hypomanic as we just seem slightly amazing, full of energy, the life of the party etc. The sad thing is 40% of all bipolars at some times attempt to kill themselves with 20% actually doing it.

Thanks everyone. It is a tangled web. Chrissy: is it not normal practice to prescribe a stimulant to a bipolar person who is also AD? How is ADD treated in a person with both? (new forum for this question?)

well, generally, they treat the bipolar first, with an ssri and a mood stabilizer, then they go to work on the add. generally stimulants are NOt given to bipolar people though recently some docs have been having success using mood stabilizers and stimulants, though I tend to think that hypomania may not be being looked at as an issue in those situations.

I would have to STRONGLY agree with Chrissy on that...they almost NEVER give a stimulant to a BP.

This is were the need to have a great clinician comes in to play.

Yep yep & yep!!