My Victory Over Bipolar Disorder: food sensitivities Posted: 09-08-07 12:01pm
Hi All,
Since I'm not a doctor I can't tell you
what to do, but there is no reason why I
can't tell you what I did - how I
conquered my bipolar disorder! I had been
reading about how food sensitivities can
cause mental problems, so I tried
one-by-one to eliminate foods from my
diet. First I got off all my meds so that
my persistent anxiety symptom would
return. I used the anxiety as a test as to
whether or not elimination of a specific
food had any effect. Within two days of
stopping cow's milk, my anxiety
disappeared. I stopped all dairy products
immediately and I haven't had any mental
symptoms since, including manic episodes.
It's been over a year now and I feel
great. I didn't have a problem with milk
when I was younger, so it seems these
sensitivities can develop later in life. I
did a search on the internet for “food
sensitivities” and "food allergies" to
come up with a list of possible
candidates.
The “Textbook of Nutritional Medicine”
by Melvyn R. Werbach, M.D. (1999) has a
chapter on nutritional causes for bipolar
disorder (p. 174). There he has a section
on food sensitivities and he gives an
example of a 32-year-old art teacher that
found that bread was her problem. He also
talks about deficiencies in vitamins,
minerals, and other nutrients as being
possible causes for BP.
If you want to pursue this method, talk to
your doctor about how to go about it. It
is my understanding that if you’ve been
on meds for a while it may be hard to get
off them.
